Sermon by Bob Bradley

Transcription

1 Sermon by Bob Bradley COPYRIGHT 2016 CAMPBELL CHAPEL FREE WILL BAPTIST CHURCH 1709 Campbell Drive * Ironton, OH 45638

2 The Numberless Multitude Sunday, May 1, 2016 Bob Bradley Revelation 7:9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; Revelation 7:10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. Revelation 7:11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, Revelation 7:12 Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. Revelation 7:13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? Revelation 7:14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Revelation 7:15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. Revelation 7:16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. Revelation 7:17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. John is we know that John was put on the Isle of Patmos. It was a rock out in the Asian Sea. It was an Island, just a big ole rock. They had put him out there because of his testimony that he loved Jesus. He would not deny Jesus so they put him out there and they no doubt thought he would just die out there and he would starve to death or whatever. It was great what God did for John while he was there. We know that the Bible says, John said, he was in the spirit in the Lord s Day. He heard behind him a voice and so forth. You can read that in chapter 1. Jesus is going to be revealing unto John some things that had happened, some things that were happening and some things that were going to happen during the end time. If you read chapters 2 and 3, you read about the church age. I think you read from Pentecost until the rapture of the church. When we read about the last church, the Laodicean church in chapter 3, then when chapter 4 opens; I believe that is when the church goes to heaven because as it says when you read what happens there and the things that transpires from then on. I think when we read 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15 and different places these things all come together and tells me that we are going to leave here one day. The church of Jesus Christ is going to leave here very

3 soon. We know that when that happens, we know when Jesus appears in the clouds and we are called up to be with Him, we know that things on planet earth is going to change quickly. We know that for a while the antichrist, when he comes on the scene he is not going to come on the scene as antichrist. He is not going to come on the scene carrying a big pitchfork and having a red tail and big pointy ears. He is not going to look like that at all. When the antichrist comes on the scene the world the Bible says is going to wander off after him. What that means is that he is going to have the answers to or so he says, to all the problems we have. To the problems that are going on in the middle east now, the threat of war and all the things that are going on with North Korea and South Korea and all the things that are happening there; when we look at what is in Iran, Iraq and all the nations that are there with Pakistan along with the threats of nuclear war with the Arabs and Israelis; not only that but he is going to seemingly have the answers to the problems of unemployment, have the answers to the problems to feed the poor, have all the answers to all the problems that we have and he is going to convince the world to come and follow him. You come and do what I tell you to do and all these problems will just go away. I think when we listen to some of the people in our media, and even in politics today; I think that a lot of people would follow some people off the end of the world. I am going to be respectful here tonight. As dumb as some of those people are, yet they have millions and millions of people following them; it baffles my mind sometimes how far we have come away from God. When the antichrist comes on the scene, he is going to convince the world to follow him. The world is going to follow him. When you read the book of Daniel, it talks about craft is going to prosper. Unemployment is going to go down. Economy is going to pick up. There are going to be jobs, and things will look just great. The church is going to be gone. We are not going to be here. There will be a lot of people that will be so thankful that those bunch of fanatics are gone. They are going to be happy about that. Some of them are your family and some are mine. Amen! They are going to be glad wherever we went, they don t care they are just glad that we are not here anymore. He comes on the scene. He makes his brags. He puts things in motion. He is being energized by satan himself. When you read the Bible you will find out that things are going to go good for a short period of time. When you Revelation 5, and especially when get to Revelation 6; we read about the destruction that comes: the red horse, the black horse, the white horse, the pale horse. Do you remember reading about those guys? The destruction that comes. The war that comes. The devastation that comes. The death that comes. Like this world has never seen before is coming. When you read the book of Revelation, it doesn t necessarily, chapter 1 doesn t necessarily proceed chapter 2. It does as far as the numbers go but the events that

4 take place in chapter 12 doesn t not happen before what happens in chapter 13. Things are not in chronological order. Let me say it that way. That may be a better way to say it. Somewhere in the beginning, the first three and a half years of tribulation, God is going to do something here. He is going to seal 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of the children of Israel. Do you know what antichrist is going to do? Antichrist is also going to put a seal upon his people. Do you know what the seal is? I don t know what the seal is. I don t know what that is going to be. I think I know how they are going to do it now. With all the technology we have now, we can insert chips into your hands and scan that and they can tell everything about you; your social security number, where you live, where you work, how much money you have in the bank. They can tell everything that you ever did by one little chip that is under your skin. Whatever the device he uses, I don t know, but he is going to have a mark. If you don t receive his mark then you are not going to be able to buy or sell. You are not going to be able to hold a job. You are going to be mistreated. You are going to be forsaken. You are going to be put out here to starve to death if you don t receive the mark of the beast whatever that is. Do you know what people are going to do? When you go to the grocery store and say, Hey, I want to buy food for my kids or buy food for my family. If you can t buy food do you know what people are going to do? They ll say Give me the mark then. Let me have the mark. I want to buy food for my family. I don t want to starve to death myself, so let me have the mark. He puts his mark upon people. God himself here is going to seal 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of the children of Israel. Now I m not going to get into what they are going to do because that is not my thought tonight. However, these guys are going to go all over the world preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Their message is going to be, Hey, the guy that says he is God, the guy that says he is Christ; he is not the Christ, he is the antichrist. They are going to be preaching the message saying, Hey, the Messiah, the King, the true Christ is about ready to come on the scene but this guy we are looking at now, this guy that is going into Jerusalem and declaring himself to be God is not God. That is what their message is going to be. They are going to go all over the world preaching that gospel, the gospel of the kingdom. The Messiah is about ready to come on the scene. Do you know what is going to happen? When I read the Bible get this, this is going to be news for some of you and some of you are going to have to think about this for a while and if you have questions about it, call me before you go off and tell everybody I ve lost my mind during the tribulation period there is going to be a revival on earth like we have never seen before. Do you know why we are going to have a revival? It is because people, these 144,000 are going to go all over the world preaching the gospel that this guy that is sitting on the throne in Jerusalem is not God, but our Messiah, the

5 King of Israel is about ready to come on the scene. Come, believe and follow Him. That is going to be their message. The Bible tells us here that millions upon millions of people are going to listen to the preaching of the gospel of the 144,000. The first thing people say, Why do we want to get saved today? What is the big issue about us telling people sitting in pews today that they need to get saved, and if they don t get saved they are going to be lost forever? Why do we tell people that? If you read the book of 2 Thessalonians, it will tell you why we do that. If you are sitting in pews today, listening to the Word of God being preached and taught today and you will not receive, believe, respond positively unto the grace of Almighty God today; then if it is going to cost you your head, you are not going to do it then either. The Bible says that God is going to send a strong delusion that you will believe the lie, or believe the antichrist and be damned. That is in the Bible. Read it. It is there. These 144,000 preach and multitudes are saved. Probably in my mind, probably more people will be saved in a short period of time during the tribulation period than all the church age in the last 2,000 years. More people will be saved in that short period of time. Do you know why? It is because people are going to be hungry. People are going to be hunting people. People are going to be starving to death. There is going to be war. There is going to be famine like we have never seen before. Do you know how people are going to get saved? They are going to get saved just like you got saved, and just like I got saved. We are going to get saved by exercising faith in the God of heaven. Noah was saved by faith. Abraham was saved by faith. Rahab was saved by faith. You and I were saved by faith. The millions that will be saved in the tribulation period, will be saved by faith, not works or church but in faith, in the God of heaven. Here is what happens. They are sealed. They have their mark. When you read the story, when you read the Bible we know that they are going to be marked people. They are going to be hunted down and killed. We understand that. We know it is going to be a horrible time for these guys but they are going to preach. Untold millions are going to be saved. I read to you in verse 9 Revelation 7:9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; When you read that in the original manuscripts, it brings out the idea of a number that is uncountable. A great multitude that no man get that no man could number. We have some smart dudes on planet earth. If nobody could number them that tells me there is going to be a pretty good swarm.

6 Get this. Revelation 7:9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; Do you know where they are at? They are standing before the throne of Almighty God. They have white robes on. Do you know what that means? That means righteousness. They have been made righteous. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. They have palms in their hands. Do you know what that means? That means they have victory. They have won the battle. Listen. We can win the battle if we exercise faith in Jesus Christ. Whether we are here today or whether we are there, it takes faith to please Almighty God. These guys had white raiment on. They had palms in their hands. Could you imagine being there? Listen. If you are saved, you are going to be there. Isn t that great. If you are saved, you are going to be there. This great multitude of people, untold millions are standing around the throne. Turn back a chapter, we read about twenty and four elders having crowns upon their heads. Do you know where they are at? They are standing before the throne. Do you know who the twenty-four elders are? It is you and me. It is the born again. It is the church of Jesus Christ. We are there. This untold multitude is around the throne of God. Untold millions and millions of people; me and you are there. Isn t that great. Many of you think you are going to get rid of me shortly, but you are not. I am going to live forever. You say, you are going to live forever. Amen! We are going to be around the throne of God forever. I aggravate some of you about living next door to you. I don t know the housing arrangement we are going to have. Okay? I don t know what street you are going to live on. I don t know where I am going, but I do know I have a mansion. I do know I have a dwelling place. I do know I have a place that God has prepared for me, for you and for all of us. You talk about a worship service. You think I get loud here sometimes. Listen. If a little noise bothers you then you probably don t want to go to heaven. Listen. There is going to be shouting. They are going to be praising the God of heaven. Waving their palm branches. Talking and proclaiming the victory they have in Jesus Christ. That ought to make us all shout. This is not all there is. We have issues and problems. We have all of that today. Listen. It may not be that way tomorrow. We may not be here. Why in the world do I want to get upset about what is going to happen next Tuesday and I don t know if I am going to be here five minutes from now? Let s take care of today and if there is a tomorrow we need to make plans and I understand all of that but let s don t get so

7 concerned about tomorrow that we forget about what we need to be doing today. Amen! The Bible says Revelation 7:9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; Revelation 7:10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. That means from every nation of people across the world, these 144,000 have gone and preached and people have been saved from every nation; every kindred, every tongue, every people stood before the throne, the throne of Almighty God. People from Ironton, Ohio; raised up some of these hollers. People from Argillite, KY. People from downtown Pedro are going to be there. We are going to be standing before the throne of Almighty God. Isn t that awesome? Do you really think we are really that blessed? My friend, we are really that blessed. To know that we are going to be there one day, why in the world do we act the way we act today? They are all around the throne and they have palm branches in their hands. They have their white robes on which means they are righteous and they will forever be righteous. It says here Revelation 7:10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. Do you know what that means? I think their voices were as loud as they could possibly be. They were crying with a loud voice. They were not whispering, but they were crying with a loud voice. Millions, millions and millions waving palm branches. Standing before the throne of God, and everybody has white on and everybody is praising God for salvation. We should be doing that today. Amen! If we are saved today, we should be praising God today for deliverance from our sins, deliverance from death, hell, destruction and sin. We have been delivered. We have salvation. We have been delivered from that. Listen. We should be waving the palm branches today. If we have on the robe today, and we have victory today we should be waving the palm branches today. Amen! Revelation 7:11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, Not only is there untold millions, not only is the church, you and I there but he says here, all the angels stood round about the throne. Could you imagine that? The untold millions that had been saved during tribulation, the untold millions that have been

8 saved in the church age; now we are around the throne and we see the angels are here. Revelation 7:11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, Get this. Picture this in your mind. The throne is here. The throne is here. The angels are on the outside encircling the throne. The Bible says stood round about the throne encircling the throne. The elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God. Untold millions. Millions, millions and millions, the angels that are here, the elders that are here, and the four beasts. When you look about the four beasts, they are living creatures. The word beasts is translated from words meaning living creatures. These living creatures, when I read the Bible have to do with the government and taking and having control over the weather and things we have. Read what I told you. It is here. All of us fall on our faces. Do you know what we do? Revelation 7:11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, Do you think that is going to be a grand time? My, my, my, that is going to be a time like we have never seen before. That is going to be a time that we are going to experience forever, and forever, and forever. Today, we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Jesus, when He was here, He told the disciples, Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God believe also in me. He told them He was going to go away. If He did not go away the comforter would not come. Since He was going to go away, He was going to send the comforter. He was going to send the Holy Ghost back to us. We have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. If we are saved, we have the indwelling of the Holy Ghost on the inside. No. I never did see the God of heaven with my eyes. However, I have heard Him with my heart. Amen! I know He is real. I have felt His presence. I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is real. I know that. On this day, when we get to heaven, we are going to be in His presence. We are going to be able to see Him. We are going to be able to see God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost face to face. God is sitting on the throne. The Lamb is here. The Lamb has got to be none other than Jesus Christ. We are going to be dwelling right in their presence. Not only that but also, on this particular day we are going to be worshiping right before the throne of Almighty God. That is going to be a wonderful time. Don t you think? Don t you want to be there? I would rather be there than McDonalds. Wouldn t you? or Walmart. I d rather be there than be anywhere. This is going to be a great and wonderful day. Revelation 7:12 Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

9 Look what we are saying. We are saying, Amen! Do you know what amen means? It means I agree. It is done. It is finished. I agree with what is being said. Revelation 7:12 Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. If we had the time tonight, we would take the words amen, blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honor, power, and might and look at those words; I promise you we could talk for hours about those words. That is what we are going to be doing in our worship, on this particular day, before the throne of Almighty God. John is here. The Bible says this. Revelation 7:13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? Revelation 7:14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. If it would have just been the church that would have been there, John knew that. He was part of that. If it would have been the Old Testament saints such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and some of those guys; John probably would have known them. However, he did know who these people were. But the elder told him, John, you know who these guys are. These people are the people who came out of great tribulation, those that have been saved during the great tribulation. The tribulation that has been upon the earth. As you read the story, as you read the Bible; you will find out the people that believes, the people that will not receive the mark of the beast are going to be slaughtered and killed, beheaded, starved to death, abused, misused. Do you know what? They did not deny their faith. They held onto their faith. They knew who Jesus Christ was and is. They knew He was real and they knew the antichrist was not real and they would not deny their faith. Revelation 7:15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. John sees some things. When it talks about them serving the Lord; they are going to serve the Lord continually forever. We know that in the eternal city there is no night. Don t we? We know there is going to be a change here. We know a lot of things about that city but we don t have time to talk about that. I will say this. These folks are going to worship the God of heaven continually. They are going to serve Him continually day and night forever and ever. If you think your service is over when you die, you are wrong. Our service just really begins when we leave this life and we get to go to heaven.

10 Revelation 7:16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. Revelation 7:17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. That sounds like a place I want to go. Don t you? I want to be there. I want to be in a place that there is no more sorrow. The people are going to suffer tremendously in the tribulation period. We get a hang nail today, or if one our five TVs we have in the house, goes out, we think we are going through tribulation. However, these folks here are actually going to be going through some very tough times. One day that is all going to be over. One day the sufferings of this life, for all of God s children are going to be over. We are going to be in God s presence. We are going to be able to worship and serve Him forever and ever. The God that we are going to dwell right in His presence, He himself is going to wipe away all the tears that we have ever had. The Bible says that all the former things are going to pass away. Do you know what happens here on planet earth is not going to enter into our minds, because heaven is going to be so great and so wonderful? All the sorrow and heartaches of planet earth are not even going to come to mind. Do you know why? It is because we are going to be worshiping the God of heaven. Don t you want to go to heaven? Listen. It may be tonight that Jesus Christ comes. If you are listening to me here tonight, in this building, or around the world tonight and the God of heaven has spoken to your heart; He has convicted you of your sin and shown you that you need to get saved then you need to do that now. Tomorrow may be too late. You may die tonight. You may be gone tonight. There are people who got up this morning and went to the golf course today that the undertaker carried them off the golf course today and they will be laying out in visitation on Tuesday evening. They had great plans. They were going to do a lot of different things. Listen. We don t always, as matter of fact, we very seldom know what life really holds. I do know one thing. I know Him that holds my life in His hand. If it all comes crashing down today; do you know what I can raise my hand towards heaven and say? It is has been a great ride Lord. It is has been a great time. I have enjoyed living on planet earth. What is next? Amen! That is not being sarcastic. That is not even being smart aleck. That is just saying, Lord, it is has been good here. I know the rest of it has to be great. If you don t know Jesus Christ, it would be a great time to make things right with Him. While you can, while God is speaking, while God is calling, while God is knocking, while

11 God is pleading, while you have the time, while you have the ability, while you know I talked to someone the other day in the hospital. I tried to talk to them about making things right with the Lord. Just a few days before this, they had a good mind. They thought everything was great. However, as I talked to this individual, their mind was gone. You may have great plans about making things right with God somewhere. A little bity stroke may happen tonight and you may not know where you are at tomorrow. You may be alive tomorrow but you may not know where you are at tomorrow. I m not trying to scare anybody. I m trying to tell you that life is short. Death is certain. Make things right with Jesus Christ today while you have time because tomorrow you may not be able to. Why don t you come? Come and pray