The 144,000 –
Parts 4-6
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6.
For the most part, the 144,000 will
be lowly people humble people, not
highly educated – very ordinary
people – upon whom the
extraordinary power and authority of
the Holy Spirit will rest. By
temperament and disposition, these
men and women will range from timid
to aggressive. Intellectually, they
will range from simple to profound.
Age wise, they will range from young
to old.
7.
Few, if any, of the 144,000 will know
each other, yet they will all say and
do the same things.
8.
Most, if not all of the 144,000 will
die as martyrs during the Great
Tribulation.
9.
Problem: Because the
144,000 are scattered and diverse,
because the 144,000 will be ordinary
people, because the 144,000 will not
be recognized by the world as
prophets of God, a big problem will
arise. (Incidentally, the same thing
happened to Paul.) So, how will
people be able to tell whether the
144,000 speak for God or whether they
are demon possessed? (Remember, the Pharisees
though John the Baptist and Jesus
were demon possessed. Luke 7:33,
John 7:20)
So, how
does Jesus prove to a diverse human
race that the 144,000 are His
prophets, speaking His Words? Two
infallible witnesses will confirm the
authenticity of the 144,000: The
Bible will back up everything they
teach. Even more, they will speak
with usual authority and the Holy
Spirit will give their words
incredible weight – piercing the
heart and convicting those who hear
them with overwhelming guilt. (John
16:8) These two witnesses, the Bible
and the Holy Spirit, will validate
the message and the messengers of
Jesus.
10.
As firstfruits of the end-time
harvest, the 144,000 will be sealed
first. They will be first to have
their carnal natures removes. After
they are sealed, they will have no
predisposition or proclivity for sin
as human beings currently do. After
they are sealed, the 144,000 will be
Adam and Eve before their fall.
The 144,000 will be living
examples of God’s covenant
promise to deliver us from the power
and penalty of sin. In other
words, the gospel message presented
by the 144,000 includes God’s
covenant promise to set us free from
the power of sin.
The
wonderful thing about this is that
after a person is sealed, he will not
be tempted to sin as we now are.
(Incidentally, the sealing explains
how sinners will be able to live on
Earth after mercy ends without
sinning.)
11.
The 144,000 will accomplish in a mere
1,260 days more than all Christian
missionaries combined have been able
to accomplish in the past 2,000
years. Did you know that the
population of the world is nearing 7
billion? Did you know that the total
number of people claiming to be
Christian is only 27% of the
world’s population? Did you know
that 50% of the world’s
population is under the age of 25?
Did you know that 4 billion people
live on less than $ 3 dollars a day?
Did you
know that according to the American
Bible society, 3.5 billion people
have never heard of the name of Jesus
and this number is currently
increasing by 78 million people per
year? When you ponder these
statistics, one thing becomes very
clear: Unless the Lord Himself
carries out the gospel commission,
the end of the world won’t
happen for two thousand more years!
Jesus
said:
Matthew
24:14 “And this
gospel of the kingdom will be
preached in the whole world as a
testimony to all nations, and then
the end will come.”
12.
The 144,000 will not be
self-appointed. In other words, a
person cannot volunteer for the job.
In fact, if it were not for Jesus
appearing before them and empowering
them to do what he wants done, they
would not choose the job nor the
responsibility of being a prophet
during the Great Tribulation. The
Bible reveals that the life span of God’s
prophets is usually short and very
painful.
13.
The 144,000 will be taken to Heaven
on the 1,265th day of the
Great Tribulation (a Sunday?). They
will be presented to God as first
fruits (a sample) of the coming
harvest of “sealed souls.”
The 144,000 will return to Earth with
Jesus at the Second Coming. The
wicked who put them to death will see
them coming with Jesus! But, millions
will be redeemed through the
faithfulness, sacrifices and
suffering of the 144,000.
14.
Why did God limit the number of
prophets from the 12 tribes to
144,000 in the first place? What is
the significance of 12,000 being
selected from each of the 12 tribes?
There’s an important object
lesson in this matter. It parallels
“Gideon’s army.” When
God delivered Israel out of Egypt, He
wanted to make the nation of Israel a
nation of priests and kings.
God wanted
the nation of Israel to be a light
unto salvation for the Gentiles. So,
God chose the biological descendants
of Abraham to be a nation of priests
and kings because He wanted a nation
of “faith-full Abraham
look-alikes” to serve as trustees
of His gospel.
Originally,
under the Old Covenant or “Plan
A” as I call it, it was planned
that Jesus would come to Earth and
die for our sins. THEN, Jesus would
set up His eternal kingdom on Earth.
(Instead of returning to Heaven.)
Later on,
when the time was right, it was also
planned that Jesus would purge the
faithless in Israel out of His
kingdom. After this purge, Jesus
would then send out a pure nation of
Israel (12 tribes) into the world to
invite everyone to come to the city
of Jerusalem and be saved from the
great destruction that was about to
befall Earth. (We covered this topic
at length in our study on the book of
Ezekiel.)
This
scenario is just like the message in
Noah’s day. “If you want to
live, come and get in the ark.”
In other words, everyone in the world
was to be invited to come and
participate in salvation because the
time for the destruction of sin had
sinners had come.
And, as
you well know, “Plan A” was
not implanted because of
Israel’s rebellion, therefore,
God established a New Covenant (which
I call “Plan B.”) God
modified the final gathering of the
honest-in-heart in “Plan
B.” The result is that at
the appointed time, Jesus will send a
measly 12,000 people from each of the
12 tribes throughout the world with a
message that will separate the sheep
form the goats in all religions.
144,000 servants represent 1 prophet
to approx 50,000 people.
So, under
Plan B….
a.
Everyone will hear the gospel
invitation. Instead of traveling to
Jerusalem to get inside the city (as
in Plan A), people will be invited to
enter into God’s rest on His
holy day. Of course, the price in
terms of persecution for doing so
will be great.
b.
Everyone will have to make a decision
for or against the demands of God on
how He wants to be worshiped. (You
know about the fourth commandment.)
c.
Everyone will be tested with
persecution to see what his decision
really is.
d. Then,
those who take hold of God’s
offer through faith will be given the
seal of God.
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