Revelation 7:1-8
7 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, restraining the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree. 2 Then I saw another angel rise up from the east, who had the seal of the living God. He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were empowered to harm the earth and the sea: 3 "Don't harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we seal the slaves of our God on their foreheads." 4 And I heard the number of those who were sealed:144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:
5 12,000 sealed from the tribe of Judah,
12,000 from the tribe of Reuben,
12,000 from the tribe of Gad,
6 12,000 from the tribe of Asher,
12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali,
12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh,
7 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon,
12,000 from the tribe of Levi,
12,000 from the tribe of Issachar,
8 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun,
12,000 from the tribe of Joseph,
12,000 sealed from the tribe of Benjamin.
First thing we see is God stopping the wind, being in the Bible I take this to be a literal stoppage, just consider how odd that will be, especially given our technology to monitor the weather, all of a sudden the wind will stop ,no hurricanes, no thunderstorms, no gentle breezes in the summer. I believe this one of those pregnant pauses God interjects to prepare the way. The way for what? The sealing of the 144,000.
While some theologians now and in the past try to say that God is done with Israel that he has given up on them, that we (Christians) are now God's chosen people we see this passage quite the opposite, that God never gave up on Israel. How comforting that is, because if God abandoned Israel, he could do the same to us. Now we see that God's plan includes Israel regardless of their actions and that's inline with God's character. There's no dancing around this passage, we see the 12 tribes of Israel and you cannot say in some weird way that this is actually the Christian church. God has chosen 144,000 Israelites to be evangelists, to spread the Gospel, not to the gentiles but to their fellow Jewish brothers and sisters.
Another interesting item, is the omission of Dan, we have twelve tribes here but the inclusion of of the half-tribe of Manasseh. Perhaps the exclusion of Dan was the result of their constant falling into idolatry and causing the other tribes to fall into that sin as well. Also notice that the order of the tribes have been altered. Age is not the sorting factor which has always been the case during ancient times, that is the oldest goes first but ehre we see Judah first mostly because the Messiah came from that tribe.
The final portion of the interlude before the judgements is an image of heaven
Revelation 7:9-17
9 After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were robed in white with palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:Salvation belongs to our God,
who is seated on the throne,
and to the Lamb!11 All the angels stood around the throne, the elders, and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying:
Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and strength,
be to our God forever and ever. Amen.13 Then one of the elders asked me, "Who are these people robed in white, and where did they come from?"
14 I said to him, "Sir, you know."
Then he told me:
These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.
They washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb.
15 For this reason they are before the throne of God,
and they serve Him day and night in His sanctuary.
The One seated on the throne will shelter them:
16 no longer will they hunger; no longer will they thirst;
no longer will the sun strike them, or any heat.
17 Because the Lamb who is at the center of the throne will shepherd them;
He will guide them to springs of living waters,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
We see here in Revelation 7:9-17 a snapshot of heaven, and the imagery that strikes me the most is the countless number of people. We've seen huge crowds before, such as Obama's inauguration, where a couple of million people were estimated to be there, but here the number is so large we cannot even estimate, its not countable (by man). While people have given large numbers of how many Christians are alive in the world (only God truly knows) we see these are the people who came out of the tribulation, this unnumerable crowd of people are only a subset of all who are in heaven. Can you imagine people as far as the eye can see, offering up praises to the one true God!
It's a comforting image, because, lets face it right now Christians on earth are the minority and the world hates us, in so far that we have gone into the light and they prefer the dark. So in the tribulation after the rapture, there will be even fewer people who claim Jesus as their savior and the people who reject him will be even more hostile to those people.
Revelation 7 gives a tiny respite, setting up more of the supporting information regarding God's plan for the end times and we also see God's faithfulness, because he has stood by his chosen people regardless of what they did.
