2026-03-16 Revelation 7-8 Wednesday Part 1

Today is the day you have.

Welcome to Today in the Word with Pastor Bob Larson,

of Calvary Chapel Caldwell.

Pastor Bob will be with us in just a few minutes,

but first we'd like to let you know

that Calvary Chapel is located on the corner of 10th

and Everett across from the library in downtown Caldwell.

We have two Sunday morning services at 9.30 and 11.30.

If you prefer Saturday nights,

we have a Saturday night service at 7 p.m.

We also have a midweek service Wednesday night at 7 p.m.

You can watch Today in the Word on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m.

on ABC channel 6.1.

Join us as we broadcast Calvary Chapel Caldwell's

Sunday morning church services.

Where Pastor Bob teaches you how to apply the truth

in your Bible to your everyday experiences,

so that you might enjoy better life.

If you have your Bibles, we're in Revelation chapter seven

as we're making our way through the Bible.

If you haven't been here, quick review is that we learned

in Revelation two and three, that that was the age of the church.

And then we learned in Revelation five that Jesus,

the Messiah, has the scroll in his hand,

and he's going to open the scroll.

The church is in heaven in Revelation five.

In Revelation six, Jesus begins to open the scroll,

which is the title deed of the earth,

and that begins the seven year tribulation period

that everybody's concerned about.

And we read about how it starts out with the white horse

and then those first four seals, the white, the black,

the red, the pale.

And at that time, 25% of the population is wiped out.

And then in Revelation six, we see the fifth and the sixth seal open.

We read about that last week.

And now we come to Revelation seven.

And before the seventh seal is open,

there's a parenthetical section here in Revelation seven.

So the seventh seal is not opened until Revelation eight,

which we'll get to tonight.

But this is known as a parenthetical section,

which is it's kind of like a little stop in a section

and show something else.

So Revelation six ends with a question.

Revelation six, 17.

For the great day of his wrath has come

and who is able to stand.

So we know that in Revelation six,

we're in God's wrath being poured out on the earth

and he says who is able to stand.

And then in Revelation seven,

they answered that question.

Even though these are going to be the worst days

the world's ever seen,

the seven year tribulation period as it begins,

people are still going to get saved during that time.

And we talked about that on Sunday,

how it's God's heart to save souls.

So let's pick it up in verse one, Revelation seven.

After these things, I saw four angels

standing at the four corners of the earth,

holding the four winds of the earth

and the wind should not blow on the earth

or the sea or on any tree.

So here the four corners is a figure of speech, right?

Many of the things we read about in the book of Revelation

are pictures, images, idioms.

It speaks of the North, South, East, West,

the four points of the compass.

And he's saying that these four corners of the earth,

the winds of the earth should not blow.

So imagine all these bad things going

and there's no breeze, right?

You've ever been out on a hot day

and there's no breeze and you're like,

oh, wish there was little breeze.

So all the bad stuff we read about last week

and then in verse two it says,

then I saw another angel ascending from the East,

having a seal of the living God

and he cried with a loud voice of the four angels

to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea

saying do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees

till we have sealed the servants of God on their forehead.

So now this parenthetical section

we had a little time out like, hey stop, what's going on

until we seal these servants of God.

Now between the six and the seventh seal

God's judgment is suspended here

from the trees and the sea, all those sort of things.

It says in verse three,

seeing do not harm the earth or the sea

or the trees till we have sealed the servants

of our God on their foreheads.

And I heard a number of those who were sealed

144,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed.

Now if you've been around for a while

and you've ridden the Bible for a while

and you realize that there are a lot of different groups

who claim to be this 144,000

because people want to know who are these 144,000.

And the Jehovah Witnesses are a group that they claim

to be 144,000 until their group passed that

and then they said no we're not

cause they didn't have my room.

So and then I don't remember Herbert W. Armstrong,

Worldwide Church of God, they claim to be that.

Now why would any group claim to be this 144,000

even though we read right there in verse four

who it says it is, right, children of Israel?

Well, why would any group want to be them?

You know, and it's interesting because in doing so

they conveniently write the Jews out of prophecy.

And I don't know if you've ever heard

of replacement theology or reconstructionism or kingdom now.

All of those terms teach that all of God's promises

to Israel were passed onto the church

because the Jews rejected Jesus.

And way back we talked about Constantine

and the church when we were in Revelation two and three.

Constantine around 312 AD, right,

that his conversion to Christianity,

Christianity became the official religion

of the Roman Empire.

And at that point Christian teachers

and thinkers and theologians had been teaching

that the kingdoms of this world are gonna fall.

But now they got a Christian in power, Constantine.

And so they were teaching that Jesus was literally

gonna return and rule the earth and free it from Satan's system.

But that wasn't popular with the administration in power.

So it wasn't politically correct.

So it was like, oh, we can't think that.

So origin, another Bible teacher, philosopher of the day,

said, I think we've been reading the scriptures wrong.

And all the promises given to Israel

are simply allegories and illustrations.

And he was followed by Augustine

who advocated the allegorization of the Old Testament.

And so Augustine was eventually followed by Martin Luther

and Luther had great faith.

And you know, he was part of the Reformation.

We talked about that.

But he was against the Jews.

And one of the tragedies of this replacement theology

is that it led to anti-Semitism.

And really Hitler was an anti-Semite, right?

Hitler believed that the Jews were terrible,

led to the holocaust, right?

And so when you think about what was going on with Hitler,

and you probably heard different stories about what

was the church doing when Hitler was, you know,

doing his thing, well, a lot of the Protestant pastors

supported Hitler because they believed, right?

That God was done with Israel.

And so, but the truth is, the Bible tells us

that Israel is God's timepiece as it relates

to prophetic things.

And God is not through with the Jews.

God made a covenant with Abraham.

And he promised a blessed Abraham,

regardless of Abraham, whatever he did there in Genesis 12.

One that says, now the Lord said to Abraham,

that was his name before God changed his name to Abraham.

He said, I will make you a great nation.

I will bless you.

I will make your name great.

You shall be a blessing.

And I will bless those who bless you.

And I will curse those who curse you

in all the families of the earth.

You shall be blessed, right?

So we see that God has a covenant with Israel.

And the new covenant, God promised to give Israel

a new heart upon which he would write his will there

in Jeremiah 31.

He says, behold, the days are coming.

He says, Lord, I will make a new covenant

with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers

in the day that I took them by the hand

and led them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant, which they broke, though I was a husband

to them, says the Lord.

So we know that God has not done

with the nation of Israel.

And it is interesting, though, that this doctrine

is prevalent in our culture.

And those of you who are a little older

haven't been in culture for a while,

it's very prolific in universities.

And a lot of the universities, they hate the Jews

and where do they get it?

Well, we don't want to get off on that.

But, right, there's just a lot of anti-Semitism

and so who are the 144,000?

Well, in verse four, it says, I heard a number of those

who were sealed, 144,000, all of all the tribes

of the children of Israel were sealed.

So it's the children of Israel, right?

And every place in the Bible from the very beginning

Genesis to the end of Revelation, when it says

tribes of Israel, you know who it was speaking about?

The tribes of Israel, right?

So, and just in case you misunderstood

that it was the Jewish people of the tribes of Israel,

then it goes on and spells it out in verse five

of the tribe of Judah, 12,000 were sealed.

Of the tribe of Ruben, 12,000 were sealed.

Of the tribe of Gad, 12,000 were sealed.

Of the tribe of Asher, 12,000 were sealed

of the tribe of Niftali, of the tribe of Menassah,

of the tribe Simeon, 12,000, 12,000, 12,000 Levi,

of the tribe Levi, 12,000 were sealed,

of the tribe Issaqar, 12,000 were sealed,

of the tribe of Zambielin, of the tribe,

I thought that 12,000 were sealed,

the tribe of Joseph, and the tribe of Benjamin,

12,000 were sealed.

Now, you add that all up, it adds up to 144,000.

Those are the tribes of Israel,

and so it's as clear as clear can be to me, right?

And so there's no confusing about it,

these 12 tribes of Israel, 144,000 are sealed

to do God's work during this tribulation.

And these 144,000 are gonna be pointing people to Jesus, right?

And so, as we've been talking about during the tribulation,

somebody might get the idea that God's just pouring out

his judgment on the earth and too bad for all those people.

He's continually having people share his good news, right?

And so the Bible tells us that the church is already sealed

and that's what we're doing now.

And you think about where we're at,

we're in the church age where we're supposed

to be telling people, Ephesians 4.30 says,

and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God

by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

So the church is already sealed, but here in Revelation 7,

he's gonna seal these 144,000.

Verse 9, after these things, I looked and behold,

a great multitude, which no one could number

of all nations, tribes, people, and tongue,

standing before the throne, before the Lamb,

clothed with white robes with palm branches in their hands.

And so the white robes represent the righteousness

that comes through Jesus Christ and parted to us by faith.

And remember, the branches, it says there they had palm branches,

remember when Jesus rode in to Jerusalem

to be held to Messiah, remember they were waving palm branches

saying, Hosanna saved now, symbol of worship.

Verse 10, and crying out with a loud voice saying,

salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.

And all the angels stood around the throne

and the elders and the four living creatures

fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God.

So here we just see in heaven their worshiping God

and we see what these 144,000 are saying.

Verse 12 saying, amen, blessing and glory

and wisdom Thanksgiving and honor and power and might

be to our God forever and ever, amen.

Then one of the elders answered and said to me,

who are these arrayed and white robes

and where did they come from?

And he said to them, sir, you know, so he said to me,

these are the ones who came out of the great tribulation

and washed their robes and made them white

in the blood of the Lamb.

So here again, we see in verse 14

that there are people going to get saved

during the tribulation period.

And here at church, I don't know if you guys realize this,

but I meet people all the time at church who tell me,

you know, I got saved in a water,

I got saved in sunny school, went to church

and then I went to college and then I started going off

the rails and started being crazy, not following Jesus.

Then, you know, I got married or whatever,

maybe didn't get married, whatever.

And then 10 years go by and then they're like,

and then life was terrible.

And then I decided to come back to church again, right?

And I hear that story all the time from people.

And so when you think about who's gonna get saved

in the tribulation, where are they gonna be people?

Who, whenever the rapture happens,

they're gonna be like, I'm not going to church,

I don't need God.

And, right, they're gonna, but once things start happening,

once this one-world leader comes on the scene,

I mean, once you start seeing crazy things happening,

you guys realize they had a great earthquake

in Russia the other day, six largest ever.

And we're reading this like, oh yeah,

a lot more of those are gonna come, right?

But if you're a believer when the rapture happens, right?

You're gonna escape the tribulation.

But if you're not saved or not following the Lord

during that time, then you're gonna be here, right?

And, but those people are gonna know many of them.

And so, how do they get saved

during this seven-year tribulation period?

Well, God gives them lots of opportunities

to receive salvation, right?

There's gonna be the 144,000 witnessing

that salvation comes from God.

And then we're gonna read later on Revelation 11,

he sends these two witnesses,

and they witness for three and a half years

to tell people about the Lord, salvation.

And then we're gonna read in Revelation 14,

there's gonna be angels flying around proclaiming

the gospel there in Revelation 14-6.

Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven,

having an everlasting gospel to preach to those

who dwell on the earth, to every nation,

tribe, tongue, and people.

So, we see that God's gonna give people

lots of opportunity, and we're gonna stop there

for about a time.

Thank you for joining us for today in the worth.

We'd like to share with you a couple of things

that are going on here at Calvary Chapel.

Calvary Chapel called,

will invite you to our Community Easter Service Saturday,

April 4th at 7 p.m. and Sunday,

April 5th at 9.30 and 11.30 a.m.

This special service will feature the musical drama.

This is love, pre-enacting to death

and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Everyone is invited to this community event

that features a bounce house, face painting,

candy for the kids, free pizza before the Saturday service

and a barbecue after each Sunday service.

Free lattes and Italian sodas for all first time visitors.

For more information visit us at calvarycaldwell.com.

Calvary Chapel Caldwell would like to invite you

to our Saturday night service at 7 p.m.

This is an alternative for those who cannot make it

to our Sunday morning services.

Like us on Facebook at Calvary Chapel Caldwell

or check out our website at calvarycaldwell.com.

You can watch today in the word on Sunday mornings

at 10.30 a.m. on the CW channel 2.2.

Join us as we broadcast Calvary Chapel Caldwell's

Sunday morning church services,

where Pastor Bob teaches you how to apply the truth

in your Bible to your everyday experiences

so that you might enjoy a better life.

If you would like to listen to Pastor Bob's message today

and its entirety, you can visit our YouTube page.

Just search Calvary Chapel Caldwell

and you can see all of the latest messages from Pastor Bob.

Make sure to click the notification bell so you know when.

We post new content.

If you are not currently attending a church

and are in the Caldwell area,

we'd like to invite you to one of our services.

We're located on the corner of 10th and Everett

across the street from the library in downtown Caldwell.

You can also visit us on the web at calvarycaldwell.com.

If today in the word has ministered to you

and you would like to support this radio outreach ministry,

we encourage you to pray for us.

You can also partner with us financially.

Simply visit calvarycaldwell.com to make a donation.

Thank you for joining us for today in the word.

May the Lord bless you and may you have a great day.

Today is the day you have made.