Revelation – The Worship of the Nations – 16

Who watched the UT-Bama game Saturday? Everybody. It had millions in viewership. I bleed orange. I went to UT, and that’s where my wife and I met. I went to every home game while in college. If you are a UT fan, what did you do when that winning field goal was kicked? If you kept watching, what did the fans do at the stadium? Erupted! And we can use that word literally. There was literal seismic activity, as if an earthquake, the roar of the crowd was so loud. Everyone then stormed the field, tore down the goalposts, and threw them into the Tennessee River. That’s some intense worship!

Many Christians don’t open their mouth to sing but will scream at the top of their lungs when their team wins. Many Christians will not be moved to tears at the thought of the gospel, yet manly men will cry when the Vols upset Bama. I’m purposefully drawing a parallel here because this is the picture we see in heaven of the 144,000 that we started to look at last week. We see those who are sealed worship the only one who is worthy of our worship. And I want you to see how it describes their worship later in Revelation 14.

Revelation 14:1-3

We tried to finish all of Revelation chapter 7 last week but only got halfway through. Tonight, we will finish it. Let’s recap a little of what we finished with last week and read the whole chapter in context again.

Revelation 7:1-17

Last week we saw that God is eager to save. Not just here with you, but he so loves the whole world that he gave his only Son. And he saves people from the whole world.

Christianity is global. (9) Our worship here on earth should be a foretaste of our worship in heaven. This is one major reason you see such a big push against what is referred to as Christian nationalism right now. And I think rightly so. If a brother or sister in Christ, from another country, was in one of our worship services around July 4, would they be able to worship? In a lot of churches, I don’t think so. I think we should thank God for our country, but many forget that Christianity is not an American religion. Yes, we have freedom of religion, and that is incredible, and we should thank God for it, but Christianity is a global religion, and it is even thriving in places where there is no freedom of religion.

One pastor was telling me how they were changing their services to more rightly reflect this biblical truth, and a church member came to them asking, “Aren’t we going to be having a God and country worship service this year?” And he told her, “I think we’ll just stick with the God part.”

Christianity is global. That’s how it’s been from the very beginning, with the Apostle Paul taking the gospel to the ends of the known world. That’s our calling and commission as Christ followers, from Christ himself before he ascended into heaven…to bring the gospel to make disciples of who?…all nations. And that is what we see and hear around the throne of God.

Every people group is represented around God’s throne. The gospel is going to be heard and believed among all the peoples of the earth. (10)

Hear what Jesus says in Matthew 24:14, amid his teaching on what will happen at the end: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Here’s how I believe biblical prophecy to work. I believe there is often an immediate fulfillment and a future fulfillment. There is an immediate fulfillment that they see in their time, but there is a future fulfillment they won’t ever see, but God intends.[1] I think this is true in the case of this passage. Jesus lists many things that will happen before the end and wants his people to have an expectation of the end happening at any moment. Hear what one commentator says,

“All nine of these preliminary events in fact occurred before a.d. 70, though most if not all have recurred many times since then as well. Variou