The Revelation 7:9 Continued | Episode # 1048

October 15, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

The Revelation 7:9

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years.

I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life.

I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.

If you'll remember, last week we talked about the 144,000. And that's not just the number of people that get to go to heaven.

Okay?

That's not what the number is.

And we saw that God sealed them and prepared them to go out and to preach the good news. That's what they were gonna do. And there is still good news of Jesus Christ in the midst of this judgment.

And so oftentimes,

when we are in a place where we feel like everything's caving in on us, there is good news.

In the midst of judgment, the worst judgment that's possible, there's good news. And so if there's good news, then I promise you there's good news for you right now.

And so we get to that.

And notice it says this in verse nine, and we talked about this a little last week, but I want to dig in deep here after these things. That's metatalta. That's the phrase, and it's used several times in the book of the Revelation.

So it's telling you these are progressions. And by the way, we. When we study through this,

there are gonna be times where different events are going on. And they may not be going on actually simultaneously, but they may be going on,

run into each other. They're rivers that kind of run into each other along the path. And so when we're reading this,

he's trying to make sure that you understand that this is something that is as a result of what's going on.

And I know I've used that word metatauta, or after these things,

several.

But I want you to, as you're studying the book of the Revelation, he's making sure.

John's making sure that you understand that what's coming next is as a result of what just happened, which means it is a cause and effect.

These things happen because of that.

I think There's a phrase called.

Well, I'm not gonna use it.

It's a legal phrase. It's post hocus, Proctor hawk. I can't remember.

It's one of those phrases you use to make yourself sound smart anyway,

and that means. And it means because of this,

after this,

this, or because of this, this.

And so that's what metatauta means. So we know that what he's about to talk about is a result of the 144,000 being sealed and prepared for what they're what. What their ministry is.

Okay. He says, after these things, I looked and behold a great multitude,

which means now he's looking. Where is he looking? He's looking in heaven. He's not looking.

He's not looking on the earth. He's looking in heaven. And he sees a great multitude.

Now,

especially with John in the Book of the Revelation,

the people that he does not know or does not understand are people that are not a part of the group that he understands, the people that he's seen.

And so he's describing groups of people oftentimes or groups of beings oftentimes that he has no real good knowledge of.

He doesn't know who they are.

And he says that basically here he says a great multitude which no one could number,

meaning that this is a, this is a crowd that comes in. That is a lot of, lot of people.

Now we can actually number the number of people that are on the earth right now.

Now, can we be exact about it?

No, but we can get within several hundred million or at least a couple of hundred million of how many people that we believe are on the face of the earth right now.

So we can number them.

He says that there's going to be a great multitude that come as a result of this 144,000 that can't be very well numbered. They're not numbered. Okay, now there's another group in heaven that have, that have a.

That have a number that no one can. No one can, can count. And that is the angels. Okay, so you have the angels in heaven,

they're a number that can't be counted. And then you have this group in heaven that are a number that can't be counted. Now let me say this. As you're, as you're thinking through this, okay,

let me say this.

If there's a number that can't be counted,

and we know that we can count the number now of people that are on the earth, that means that that's going to be a great large group of people.

A mighty group of people,

which would tend to indicate that this group of people is not a group of people that is just the result of maybe a few years work.

This is a group of people that is the result of generational work.

Many, many people at work.

I think I used the phrase the number 14 billion a minute ago.

Do y' all know that's the number of people that they believe have lived on the Earth?

Did y' all know that?

I don't know if you know this or not, but most.

Most population scientists believe that on the Earth today,

alive today is about 40 to 50% of the population of people that have ever lived.

Did you know that?

So the total number of people that live today is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 to 50% of all the people that have ever lived.

Most population scientists believe that the number of people that have actually lived on the Earth in history is somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 billion.

That's it.

That's all you go. I don't really know how that works. Well,

I can say this to you. If you actually do population charts and you populate the Earth as far back as they say humans have lived,

even with all the plagues and all the wars and all that kind of stuff,

if we were actually growing in population like we have for the last 6,000 years, if we were growing in population over the last 6 million years that way.

Y' all ever seen an ant pile? When you stirred it up, a fire ant pile? That's what the Earth would look like with human beings.

Okay?

The whole Earth. You go, well, we got a lot of people on the Earth. Well, let me give you another fact. If you took every person on the face of the earth and took them to Jacksonville, Florida, the county that Jacksonville, Florida sits in, which I think is Duval County,

Duval county is a county in Florida, and the city limits of Jacksonville, Florida, cover the whole county. If you took all the human beings on the face of the earth to Jacksonville, Florida, and set them up with two feet between them on all sides, you could put the whole population of planet Earth in Jacksonville,

Florida.

Did you know that?

Huh?

You can.

Not only can you.

That's wild.

So that's not a lot of people.

That's not a lot of people. I don't know if you know it or not, but most of the Earth, most of the earth that is land,

has almost zero population.

Y' all do know that, right?

Most of the earth that's land, has almost zero population.

Zero population,

none. Nobody lives there.

Anybody that's there is passing through because you can't live there,

okay? You can't. There's not enough resources to live there.

Everybody that's been there came back or died where they were at.

All right?

Why am I telling you all this? Well,

this group of people,

I believe,

are all the people who are redeemed from the day of the rapture of the church until the end of time,

from the day of the rapture till the end of time. And you go, well, will people be actually having children?

Yeah. Jesus is going to rule the earth in the way the earth was meant to be populated.

They're going to continue to be children born and generations after Jesus. Jesus comes back.

The earth is actually going to be filled and subdued by Jesus.

He is going to reign for a thousand years.

That's a long time.

That's a very long time.

And understanding that that's going to happen and that people that are not the church,

that are not Old Testament saints or going to continue to live on the earth and they're going to continue to populate God's creation on the earth and perhaps other places,

they're going to do that.

All right, so if that happens and we have natural population growth without death,

without murder,

without war, without pestilence, without disease, if we have all that, how many people are going to be alive?

A lot of people are going to be alive.

A lot of people. And that's what he says. He says, I looked and saw great multitudes which no one could number and notice it was from all nations, tribes, people,

tongues,

standing before the throne and before the lamb. And so these people are people that are alive and are before the throne.

That means they're redeemed. That means they're. They're. And we are going to see that they're redeemed. But I also want you to notice this about them because it's real important.

There were people from every tribe, tongue, language and people group.

Okay.

How does he know that they are.

Did he go talk to all of them?

Did he take a census of the number of people that can't be counted to figure out, to make sure that they were from every tribe and people and tongue and language?

How does he know?

Because it looks like.

Looks like it.

Have you ever been to Disney World?

That's the closest place in the world you can go where there are people from every tribe, tongue,

language and people group. Okay, all right. And they're all talking their own languages. Okay.

That is really kind of one of the only places in the world you can go where that's going on, too.

And how do you know? Well,

they got different color hair, different color eyes, different color skin, different heights, different body types. I mean, they're from everywhere.

All the tribes tongues and languages. Has John seen all the tribes tongues and languages?

Absolutely. He's not, I guarantee you he's not seen Polynesian people. You ever seen a Polynesian man? I mean, a big old rascal, they go, he had seen,

seen those people. He says, I've seen them from every tribe, tongue, language. They were all over.

All right, now that.

That's important.

Okay.

Oftentimes people want to. To teach us that the Bible is a racist book.

Okay?

Those who are in the world want to. Want to lambast the Bible as a racist book. It's not.

It's not.

He's going to win. In fact, he's pretty much said he is going to win some from every tribe,

nation, tongue and language. Now, there are those who teach that Jesus is not coming back till that happens based off of this verse.

Okay,

I'm not sure that you can teach that off this verse. I'm not saying that they're not right about that. I'm just saying that I'm not sure that you can teach that based off of this verse.

Okay.

All right.

So when you hear somebody say that, where they're getting that is from here.

Okay.

But it's a multitude that John doesn't know.

Would John know the church?

Yeah. Would he know the Old Testament saints?

Yeah. Did he live in both ages?

Sure he did. He lived in the Old Testament age. When did the Old Testament age end?

The resurrection. That's exactly right. The Old Testament age ends and the New Testament church begins at the resurrection. So John the apostle would have been an apostle of the New Testament church, but would have been born of the Old Testament system.

Okay, who is the great.

Who is the greatest prophet of the Old Testament?

That's a great trivia question to ask you. Who does Jesus say is the greatest Old Testament prophet?

We got Moses.

Well, you two are answering because y' all know.

Y' all both know, huh?

Elijah. No,

it's John the Baptist.

John the Baptist. You go, he's in the New Testament. Yeah, but he's a part of the Old Testament. He is the greatest man born of woman.

But anybody in the church is going to be greater than him,

okay? Which means he's Old Testament.

He is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy of a voice in the wilderness crying out.

He is the fulfillment of God's promises of the Old Testament. And he Dies before the resurrection.

He is the last Old Testament prophet who was promised to come.

You go.

You're freaking me out, Pastor. Okay, now, when is the Old Testament? I thought when we got to the red part, that's when the New Testament started.

I.

Yes and, and no.

Yes and no. You, you, you need. And I want, I want you to begin to see scripture. I want you to be. Begin to see scriptures alive and, and not try to place it in.

Into these bins that we like.

Okay?

It's alive. It's teaching us something.

He says,

he says they were on. They were standing before the throne and before the Lamb.

All right,

so you've got these, this group of people that are surrounding the throne and surrounding the Lamb.

Now, you can't be there unless you're redeemed.

You can't be there.

They're in the presence of God. They have a relationship with God. They have a relationship with God based off of redemption. How do I know that? Well, it says here they're clothed in white robes.

That's a picture of being holy.

All right?

Are any human beings,

Are any human beings holy based off of their own work?

No. You can't wear a white robe in heaven based off of your own work.

You can't. It ain't going to get you there.

At best, you'll get a really, really dingy, messed up dark robe if it's not just absolutely, terribly black and worthless.

Okay?

You have no robe in heaven of your own. The robes that you wear in heaven are based off of the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Okay?

They're based off of the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Period.

End of story.

They're redeemed by Jesus.

You can't have a white robe in heaven unless you're redeemed by Jesus. Period.

Old Testament, New Testament,

after the Rapture, those who come along in the tribulation,

they can't have it.

He says they have white robes and palm branches in their hands.

Huh?

Their palm branches in their hands.

Well,

this is a picture of.

Well, I mean. Well, let me ask you when you think this, because it's good for me to do a little, little Bible study. Thinking. When you're studying the Bible,

do we have any other story in scripture that tells us about palm branches?

Yeah, absolutely we do.

We have Jesus.

We have been bringing palm branches into the feast of Tabernacles.

We have them putting the palm branches on the road as Jesus rode in on the donkey,

right?

So palm branches represent redemption. They represent the finished work of Jesus. Let me tell you Something I do want to tell you this story, and we're probably going to get to it pretty soon in John,

but one of the great stories of scripture and one of the great stories of Jesus life that kind of answer questions, because a lot of people say, well, Jesus never said he was God.

Well, he did,

okay? He did.

And let me tell you why he did.

And he said it in other ways, but he said it one time that was real, real important during the Feast of Tabernacles, which was really kind of a party,

okay? And it's a party because it's a feast where they lived like they lived in the wilderness, okay? After they'd been redeemed out of Egypt, all right? So they came.

It's also called the Feast of booths, okay?

And they would set up booths all around Jerusalem, and they would live in these booths for seven days, and they would feast,

and they would each day have a great worship service,

okay? Now, it was a really cool worship service because the worship service took place inside the city near the temple,

okay? It was an outdoor worship service,

and people would.

And the place where it took place, and I can't remember the name of it, but the place where it took place there was the Temple Mount. There was places all around it where you could get on the roofs, you could get on the.

On the buildings around it, you could get on the walls.

It was filled with it.

And all day they would be singing and eating and singing and eating. Singing worship songs, okay? Singing, singing. Well, the Book of Psalms. They'd be singing the Book of Psalms.

All right, all day long.

And then I think it's in the afternoon,

the chief priest would lead a processional of people into this big worship area,

okay?

And it was a celebration of God's provision.

Now, you got to get this because it's really neat.

It wasn't. It didn't have. They didn't have bread.

It was a celebration of God's provision of water.

Okay?

When he got water from the rock, all right, which is the celebration of God giving him the bread, Passover, okay?

All right?

So the priest comes in, and they are singing and dancing all around the priest. And they got these palm branches that they're waving in the air,

okay?

And they get to the bottom and there's some prayer said and some things done. And at the very end, the priest would take the picture of water.

And.

He'D pour it out,

which is a picture of God pouring out his best. Pouring out the well. It's a picture of the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit.

Okay, remember, water's a picture of the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit.

Wine's a picture of the goodness of the Holy Spirit. Oil is a picture of the power of the Holy Spirit.

All right?

So they pour the water out, and they would sing and celebrate on into the evening,

okay? Because God had provided them water for us. It's a picture of God providing the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Are y' all on the same page with me?

So they do this for six days?

Six days. It's big time.

All right?

The seventh day, which is on Sabbath,

they do everything exactly the same.

Everything,

except when the priest gets to the end and he pours out the picture,

the picture's empty,

and everybody goes completely silent.

And then they go pack up their booze and go home.

Because God's final redemption is not done yet.

It's not done yet.

So the Bible tells us on the last and greatest day of the feast,

Jesus stood up and said.

Which means when they poured it out and it was all quiet,

he stood up and said,

for those of you who are thirsty,

come to me and I will give you drink.

Now, that was an announcement that he was the source of the water. He was the rock,

that he was God.

So these palm branches represent.

They point us to the cleansing work of God through Jesus and by the Holy Spirit.

And any place where God's moving,

there should be all three.

There should be the cleansing of the Holy Spirit, meaning there should be people who are really dealing with some real stuff and having their hearts and minds changed.

There should be some goodness of the Holy Spirit. There should be some joy. There should be some happiness. There should be some.

Some. Some celebration of who God is.

We try to do that in our worship service.

And then finally, there should be some power of the Holy Spirit.

There should be. There should be the presence of the Holy Spirit felt and his power changing things.

Okay?

But this story is pointing to. Directly to that water and those palm branches. It's pointing to it as you go. Today I pray that the Lord will.

Bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.