Voddie Baucham - Who Can Stand

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Take your bibles and open them once again to Revelation
chapter seven. And here in Revelation chapter seven, we continue
our journey through this tremendous chapter. We have already seen

(00:25):
the controversial parts of the chapter and tried to explain
as best we could the reason that we interpret it
the way that we do, and pray that you see
the consistency with which this particular passage is handled, Especially

(00:45):
in light of all of the things that we have
handled up to this point and all of the things
that we will handle beyond this point. It is important
to acknowledge the fact that the interpretation here, the answer
that we have given, the conclusions that we've drawn from
Revelation chapter seven are not the most familiar, most common,

(01:15):
or most popular conclusions drawn from this particular text. And really,
as I've sort of walked through this, I've come to
realize that that is a bit of an understatement. We've
become so convinced with the dispensational presuppositions, and so familiar

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with those dispensational presuppositions that any interpretation of Revelation chapter
seven that does not include the secret rapture of the
Gentile Church and the one hundred and forty four thousand
being God's re engagement with literal ethnic Israel being really

(02:01):
just sort of outside of the bounds of proper interpretation.
And as I said earlier, my prayer is that as
we've walked through these texts, that it has been clear
that what we're dealing with here is a consistent interpretation
of Revelation chapter seven, in light of all that we

(02:23):
have done before and all that we will do up
to and beyond this point. We've also seen that this
interpretation really is a byproduct of the hermeneutic that we
use when we approach the Book of Revelation as a whole,
and that there are a number of different interpretive approaches

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to the book. Ours happens to be different than the
approach that many in our day would take. However, let
me remind you that our approach is absolutely consistent with
the approach that the Church has taken to Revelation throughout
most of its history, and that the dispensational hermeneutic is

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a recent invention only a couple of centuries old. Popularized
books you know, like the Left Behind series and so
on and so forth, have made it seem like this
is the way we've always approached revelation, that everybody has
been dispensational, premillennial and expecting the secret pretrib rapture of

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the Gentile Church. But folks, it is just not true.
That is simply not the case. There is a long
history of interpreting this book that has existed long before
dispensationalism ever came on the scenes in the eighteen hundreds.
Let me reiterate. The eighteen hundreds is when dispensationalism came

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on the scene. Okay, so there's a long history of
interpreting this book. But regards wardless of that long history,
we are not held captive to any particular history of
interpreting the Book of Revelation. Amen. We are not held
captive by any particular popular teacher and the way that

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he approaches the Book of Revelation. We are not held
captive by any popular ministry and by the way they
interpret the Book of Revelation, especially those who have for
years taken a literalistic approach to revelation, and every time

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something crops up in the Middle East, they point to
it as particular fulfillment and have people ready and biting
their nails because Armageddon is just right around the corner,
and again it doesn't happen. And again and again and
again these interpretations are proved wrong. Again and again and again,

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these interpretations are proved false. And as if that weren't enough,
my prayer is that what you've seen through this approach
to the Book of Revelation is that now. And I
know this because some of you have even come and said,
and we've gotten people who've called and written this as well.
There are some of you who, for the first time

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in your life see this book as relevant for you
here and now. Amen. One of the reasons that we
don't study the Book of Revelation is because if you
believe that the rapture of the Gentile Church happens in
chapter five, and that everything beyond that is for some
you know later event known as the Great Tribulation, and

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that the Great Tribulation is not something here and now,
then all of Revelation from chapter six on has absolutely
nothing to do with you, except, of course, to make
you get all nervous every time something jumps off in
the Middle East, as you wonder, is this what's going
to bring us to the battle of Armageddon. But as

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we've approached this letter. My prayer is that you've seen
that this is very much an encouragement for the entire
Church for all ages, and that this doesn't miss us
at all. This is not some puzzle book for us
to try to figure out things that are going to happen.

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This is a picture book to encourage us in the
midst of the tribulation which is here and which is now.
Everything that we saw in Revelation chapter six is part
of our present, not part of our future. Everything that
we saw, the violence, the wars, the famine, the pestilence,

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the martyrdom, the natural disasters, everything that we saw in
Revelation chapter six, everything that is described as the Great Tribulation,
is part of the world in which we live today.
And so what's written here is not written for that
left behind generation so that they can finally pick up

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the Book of Revelation and have something that's relevant to
their everyday life. God did not leave us this book
for one particular generation to benefit from. It is here
for all the Church through all of time, from the

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moment that it was written to the end of the age.
And nowhere is that clearer than in verses thirteen and
fourteen of Revelation chapter seven. We've already seen and argued
that that list of one hundred and forty four thousand
is not, and in fact cannot be a list of

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literal ethnic Jews. It is not, and it cannot be
a list of ethnic Jews. That number one hundred and
forty four thousand is a symbolic number. And we know
from Revelation chapter one, verse one. Again. We've said it before,
we will say it again. The reason that we interpret
this book not just we use the term symbolically, that

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that's a little bit misleading. The reason that we use
the idealist approach as opposed to the futurist approach, The
reason that we're looking at this and looking at symbols
first unless we have something that points us specifically to
a literal interpretation, is because in chapter one and verse one,

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John tells us that he's being symbolic. So the only
way to approach Revelation literally is to approach it symbolically,
because it literally tells us in verse one that it's symbolic. Amen.
So when we see a number like one hundred and
forty four thousand, which is twelve times twelve times one thousand,

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or twelve thousand times twelve thousand. When we see a
number like that, and we've already seen the number twelve
used before, and we understand that this this one thousand
number is specific in its order of magnitude, then we
understand that there are two twelves here. We've seen them

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added before. Now we see them multiplied. So we're trying
to make a statement with the number one hundred and
forty four thousand about a large number of individuals who
have a very specific application. The number twelve, when we've
seen it added, especially with the twenty four around the throne,
has represented two particular twelves, the twelve representing the people

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of God in the Old Testament, and then the twelve
representing the people of God in the New Testament. You
put them together and add them, and you come up
with twenty four. You put them together and multiply them,
and you come up with one hundred and forty four
times one thousand is one hundred and forty four thousand.
So this number represents the people of God in the

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Old Testament the people of God in the New Testament.
But on orders of magnitude. First, we see those orders
of magnitude represented by the twelve times of the twelve
times one thousand. Then we see those orders of magnitude
represented by a number that no man can number, the

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specific number one hundred and forty four thousand. He hears
the great multitude that no one can number. He sees.
We saw that this pattern was reflected in chapters four
and five with the Lion and the Lamb. He hears

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of the lion of the tribe of Judah, and he looks,
and what does he see? He sees a lamb. Are
the lion and the lamb two different individuals? Absolutely not,
It's the same individual. It is Christ. He is the
lion of the tribe of Judah, and he is the
Lamb of God. He heard one and saw another, and

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they both referred to the same thing. Here he hears
one hundred and forty four thousand, and then he sees
a great multitude, and they both refer to the same thing.
The people of God throughout the ages, who have been
preserved by God, saved by God, that they might stand

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before God, before his throne, before the Lamb at the
end of the age. This comes in answer to the
question at the end of chapter six. And remember we've
gone back to the beginning of chapter six. Chapter seven
goes back to the beginning of chapter six. At the

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end of chapter six, there is a question who can stand?
Who can survive? When you look at God's wrath being
poured out completely upon the earth, when you look at
the vengeance of God against sin? The question is who
can survive this? Who can come out on the other

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side of this, this complete, total and utter devastation of
the world and everything found therein Well, there's a flashback
after the question is asked. John goes back and he
answers that question. Here's who can stand? The ones who
are sealed by God. This seal we understand being extremely important,

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especially when it's looked at and contrasted with the mark
of the beast that we will read about later on.
But these are the ones who can stand, And now
we see a picture of them standing, and a very
specific question is asked. Let's look at verses thirteen and fourteen.

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Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, who are
these clothed in white robes? And from where have they come?
There are the two questions, who are they and from
where have they come? I love this interaction, I said
to him sir, you know, I love that that's just

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dropped in there. We just read the scripture sometimes just
let things sort of pass by us. Here's John being
given a vision of things that are to come. There's
the Angel who is showing him things. And after this
I saw, and after this I saw, and after this
I heard, and the Angel is showing him. The Angel
is unveiling these things to him. Many of them he

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can't even comprehend. We talked about his anability. I need
to comprehend this number, which would have been greater, perhaps
than the number of the people in the world during
his life. And now the Angel asks him these questions,
who are these people? And where do they come from?
And John looks at him and says, you know that, right.

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I mean, even if I think I know, I'm not
you you answer that one. I think there's something to
be said there. I think there's something to be said
about the way that we approach this book. And this
is one of the things that has brought me great
comfort as we have walked through this, not trying to

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make definitive statements about what this represents and what that
represents in the future, as though this is a puzzle book.
And we have to be sophisticated enough to put together
the puzzle book and answer the questions. Our approach to
Revelation is, sir, you know, we're not sitting here going well,

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I think that this represents the Islamic world, and perhaps
this represents Russia, and maybe this represents now I don't,
I don't. We look to the author of the letter
and we say, sir, you know, Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord,
sir you know, And we look for the letter to

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tell us what it intends to tell us, and not
for us to speculate about the things that are to come.
Those things that are to come that we need to
know and understand we are given specifically in this letter.
There's no doubt about it beyond that the secret things

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belong to God. Amen, sir, you know, we don't know.
That's our approach to the Book of Revelation. Sir, you know,
you tell me what is the symbol? I don't know? Oh, sir,
you know, you tell me? And how does he tell
us when we look at the way that he uses
the symbols elsewhere. That's how we answer the question about
one hundred and forty four thousand who are these hundred

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and forty four thousand, sir? You know, how do you
use these numbers elsewhere in this letter? That's how we
answer the question. And here to those two questions, who
are they? And where they come from? You know? And
he said to me, these are the ones coming out
of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and

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made them white in the blood of the lamb. He
said so much. These are the ones coming out of
the great tribulation. In other words, these are the answer
to the question who can stand? Remember that that's the

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question who can stand? The answer these are the ones
who can stand? But there's more than just that simple answer.
Why can they stand? That's the question that's answered here.
We've alluded to it before, but here we dig down

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and it becomes specific. Who can stand? How can you
possibly stand? And that's what I want you to hear today.
I want you to think about this from your particular
vantage point and ask yourself the same question, who can stand?

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But turn it around, can I stand? Can you hope
to stand before God? On this day? You know, there's
a song it's probably the most popular. I don't even
know what to call the song. I don't want to
call it a gospel song. I don't want to call
it a Christian song. I don't want to call it.

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But it's a song that has to do with this
passage of scripture. But it's a song that has been
so perverted that the world actually embraces it completely. And
it's when the Saints go marching in. Think about that
song in a lot of this text, when the Saints
going watching in, When the Saints go watching in, Lord,

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I want to be in that number when the Saints
go marching in. If it hadn't just been ripped off
by New Orleans, Amen, there could really be something there.
God bless all of you all from New Orleans. Amen.
But there's something there. Lord. I want to be in

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that number. That's what we're talking about here. That's this
passage here, that unimaginable multitude standing before God on that day.
I want to be in that number. That's the message,
not Marty Graus in party time. Will you be in

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that number? And if your answer to that question is yes,
or at least I hope so, then the question is
how will you be in that number? Another way to
ask that question is are you a Christian? That's what

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These two verses are all about are you a Christian
or are you not? Or are you hoping that you're
a Christian? Are you believing that you're a Christian? And
if you are hoping and believing that you're a Christian,
here's the question, based upon what, based upon what evidence,

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based upon what belief? What is it that you see
in your life? Have seen in your life that makes
you in fact? That John saw you in this multitude?
Hadn't thought about it that way? Had you that for

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those who belong to God you were in this multitude?
Do you believe that you were in this multitude? You
believe that you will be in this multitude? And if
you do, based on what saw Corinthians thirteen to five says,

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examine yourself and see if you're in the faith? Test
yourself or do you not know this about you? That
Christ is in you unless you fail to meet the test?
Nor is seging Corinthians thirteen the only place where we
are believed as believers are called upon to examine our selves,

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to test ourselves, to actually ask this question, am i
numbered among those who belong to God? First? John? The
entire letter is given to this same concept, and it
is actually summarized in chapter In the first paragraph of

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First John chapter five, there are particular tests, four of
them to be exact in the epistle of First John.
Four particular tests that we see over and over and
over reiterated in that epistle, and for the most part,
we see those same tests present here in Revelation chapter

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seven as the Angel answers the question who are these individuals?
Listen to this from First John five one through five
and look for those four tests. Everyone who believe that
Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. There's
the first one, that you believe that you believe that

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Jesus is the Christ, that you believe that Jesus is
through the scriptures say he is. And everyone who loves
the Father loves whoever has been born of Him. By
this we know that we love the children of God,
that we obey his commandments. There's test two and three.
Two you love the Church. Three you obey the Lord's commandments.

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For this is the love of God that we keep
his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone
who has been born of God. Overcomes the world. There's
the fourth test, overcomes the world. And this is a
victory that has overcome the world our faith. Who is
it that overcomes the world except the one who believes
that Jesus is the son of God. He goes back
to the first test. Those four tests are reiterated again

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and again and again throughout First John. Do you believe
that Jesus is whom the scriptures say he is? Do
you love those whom he has redeemed? Do you walk
in accordance with his commandments? And do you endure and

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overcome the world? Look with me again at these verses
here in Revelation chapter seven, and see if you can't
find those same tests. When the elders addressed me, saying,
who are these clothed in white robes? And from where
they come? I said to him, sir, you know, he

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said to me, these are the ones coming out of
the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb. Three things
I want you to understand about this multitude. One, I
want you to understand the common identity of the multitude.
We see this both in the one hundred and forty

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four thousand and in the innumerable multitude, that they have
a common identity. Here's what John didn't do. John didn't
give us a Hebrews chapter eleven version of who can stand?
You know, Hebrews chapter eleven, the Great Hall of the Faith,
Hall of Fame in Hebrews chapter eleven by faith, Moses

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by faith, Abraham by faith, Jacob by faith, so and so.
He could have had that approach. The question comes at
the end of chapter six who can stand? He could
have come and instead of giving us the symbolic number
of one hundred and forty four thousand and in this multitude,
he could have just pointed to certain individuals who actually
were able to overcome, who were actually able to withstand

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and able to do it. But he didn't do that.
He doesn't take the Hebrews chapter eleven approach. He's not
pointing to individuals. In fact, he is grouping these individuals first.
He groups these individuals as again symbolically belonging to these
twelve tribes. You already know, however, that in this list
of the twelve tribes, we don't have this list anywhere else. Okay,

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it's not the list of the twelve sons of Jacob,
and it's not the list of the twelve tribes of Israel.
It's a hybrid that lets us know very specifically that
he's not talking literally about ethnic Jews. He makes that clear,
we've already dealt with that. But nonetheless he uses this
Jewish tribal language, this Hebrew tribal language, in order to

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talk about these people of God belonging to God, the
Old Testament people of God belonging to God, New Testing
people of God belonging to God, but being one people.
He doesn't talk about individuals who overcame, but he talks
about a people who overcame, the common identity, no sense

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of individualism at all. This sounds a lot like what
we find in Paul's writings Ephesians four one through six.
I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to
walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which
you have been called, with all humidity and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the

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unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There
is one body and one spirit, just as you are
called in one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord,
one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all
there is one body. We belong to that body. There

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is no individualism among Christians. We belong to Christ, this
multitude of one hundred and forty four thousand, and then this
multitude of people who come from all the four corners
of the earth, all the nations, all the tribe, all

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the tongues, all the peoples. Notice he doesn't even name
the individual nations, or doesn't even give samples of the
individual nations. There is just this conglomeration, this gathering of
the people of God who come together, and they're not
identified by their own individual ethnicity. They're not identified by
their height, or their weight or their shape. They're not

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identified by their intelligence, they're not identified by their life,
none of this. They simply are the people of God.
When we belong to God, one of the things that
marks us is that we are absorbed gladly into the

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people of God. We identify ourselves with the people of God.
We love the people of God because we understand ourselves
to be part of that people. In fact, there is
a sense in which we slowly but surely lose our

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other identities, not completely, but as we mature in Christ,
our other identities become less and less important, especially in
light of the Cross. Amen. And so when we have
to choose, for example, between our blackness or our hispanicness,

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or our whiteness or asianness or whatever, and our Christianness,
our Christianness wins all day, every day, and twice on Sunday. Amen, Hallelujah,
Praise the Lord. We are Christian before we are all
of that. Are those other things significant? Yes, they are significant. Please,

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I am not inviting you become to become one of
those lies who says things like when I look at you,
I don't see color. Liar, I'm six foot three inches
tall and I weigh a lot, and I stand here

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deep dark milk chocolate. Don't tell me that when you
look at me you don't see a black man. If
you don't, there's something wrong with you. And you insult
me and God because he made me like this. He
likes me like this, and it brings glory and honor

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to Him to make us the way he makes us.
Don't feel bad if you don't have as much melanin
as I do. God still loves you. As we grow
in grace, as we grow in Christ, I'm telling you, saints,

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it becomes less and less important who our ancestors were
in the flesh, and more and more important who our
brothers and sisters are in Christ. Again, we'll never stop
being who we are, and God uses that to his glory.

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But when we belong to Christ, that's what becomes important
to us. We see that in John's tests, do we
not when John asks us to examine ourselves as to
whether or not we love the brothers? How can we

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say that we love God, whom we cannot see, but
don't love our brothers, who we see every day. Nor
is this merely an invitation to love. You know that
ethereal universal church that you can't see, but that you

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love because you know that in that church everybody agrees
with you on everything, and nobody will ever disappoint you
or make you mad. That's not what we're talking about here, Amen.
When you belong to Christ, it's not enough for you
to have theoretical relationships with theoretical people who somewhere out

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there exist and agree with you on everything. But you're
marked by the fact that you cannot imagine your life
apart from the rest of the body. If you tell
me that you can be satisfied doing church on TV,

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I question whether or not you belong to Christ. If
you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch. If
you tell me that you're satisfied just you know, sitting
around an audio sermon from somebody gathered together with just
you and yours, a question whether or not you belong

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to Christ. When we belong to Christ, we belong to
each other, and it is absolutely unthinkable to us that
we would live our lives apart from other brothers and
sisters in Christ. By the way, here's just an aside.
If you don't like you know, everybody talks about this
famous Gandhi quote. You know, I love Jesus but not Christians,

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and so on and so forth. If you don't like
being with other believers, now what makes you think you're
gonna like being in this multitude? Amen? Somebody that here
on earth you can't stand gathering with a few dozen
other believers, but in heaven you're gonna be ecstatic to

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be surrounded by an innumerable multitude of other believers. Help
you if that makes sense your mind. We belong to
one another. He makes that very clear. He says, these
are the ones coming out, These are this innumerable multitude.

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These are that one hundred and forty four thousand. This
is the body sayingly, I want you to see the
common salvation of this multitude. Not everyone's experienced the tribulation
was the same. But I want you to notice this
he these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.

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Not everybody comes out the same way. Not everybody's experience
is the same. The best illustration that I could come
up with as I thought about this, as I think
about the end of World War two, and I believe
that that was the last time when you know, our
country actually officially went off to war, declared war, ended

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a war. You know, treaties were signed, everything was done.
We all knew we were finished. And then everybody came
home and we had parades and we celebrated at the
end of the war. We have you know, we have calendar.
We have days on the calendar where we celebrate, you know,
Armistice Day and VJ Day and all these sorts of things.

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We celebrate these things because the war ended. That after
the war ended, the troops came home and they were
parades all over the country, and we looked and we said,
these are the ones who've come back from the war.
Some of them had come back from Europe, some of
them had come back from the Pacific. Some of them
have fought on the sea, some of them have fought

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in the air. Some of them have fought on the land.
Some of them fought in land, sea and air. But
all of them had come through and come home. Regardless
of their experience. What do we find in chapter six?

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In chapter six we see the picture of this great tribulation?
And again, this great Tribulation in chapter six has absolutely
nothing in it that we aren't experiencing right here and
right now, and that we haven't been experiencing since John's day.
That's why he calls himself our partner in this tribulation.
The great Tribulation is here. The Great Tribulation is now.

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John was in the Great Tribulation. You are in the
Great Tribulation. What is it marked by. It's marked by violence.
It's marked by violence and violent men. We've seen that,
we continue to see that, and we will continue to
see that. Some come through the Great Tribulation and that's
their experience. It's marked by war and rumors of wars.

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There are wars everywhere everywhere. Millions upon millions of people
have died in wars in your own lifetime. In fact,
when you think about the number of people, if you're
here and you're say forty years old, and you calculate
the number of people who have died in wars, if

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that number had been given to John, it would have
been something he could not comprehend. He could not have
wrapped his mind around the number of people who've been
killed in wars just in my lifetime. Abortion, the millions

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upon millions of babies who've been aborted, He could not
have wrapped his mind around that kind of number. How
can we sit here, having experienced that, and said and
say that this is not the tribulation. It absolutely is.
And for some people that is what they will have
to come through, or have had to come through. They've
had to come through war. For others, it's famine. There

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is famine throughout the world. There has been famine throughout
the world. There is enough food in the United States
to feed the whole world a few times over, and
yet still there is famine all over the world. There
are people dying in famine all over the world. We
see it, and we have seen it, and it's sometimes
worse than others. Another thing that we saw there was

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pestilence or disease. We have seen pestilence and disease, and
just when we feel like we've got it all under control,
Aids breaks out. How many people did we lose when
that pestilence came upon us all over the world? Pestilence

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and disease, smallpox, polio, bubonic plague, all of these things
that killed countless millions of people. For some, that's their
experience of the tribulation and the martyrdom, those who martyred

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for their faith. We saw that in Revelation chapter six.
I remember, you know, at the end of the last millennium,
you know, before the year two thousand and in the
decade of the nineties. I remember, I remember reading this,
and it was just burned indelibly on the forefront of
my mind when the year two thousand came. If there

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are more people who died for their faith in Christ
in the decade of the nineties than in all the
two thousand years of the Church before then combined, there
are martyrs all over the world today, people dying for

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their faith in Christ all over the world today, right
now in Egypt, as that government goes through its turmoil.
Christians are having to flee in Syria. Christians are having
to flee in Iraq, Christians are having to flee in Iran.
Christians are having to flee because all over the world.
And that's not even to mention Christian Christians in places

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like the Philippines or I'm sorry, the most populist in Indonesia,
excuse me, in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in
the world, who are being slaughtered in droves. Again, the
great tribulation is something that's coming, folks, it's here and

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for some that's their experience. And then finally there was
natural disaster. All we have to do is say Sandy,
ike Rita, Katrina. That's all we have to say, the

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great earthquake, of the great recent tsunami. Again, this is
what we saw in Revelation chapter six. The question was
who can stand now? The answer that comes is not this.
Here are the people whose houses won't be destroyed in hurricanes.

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Here are the people who won't die when they go
to war. Here are the people who won't be killed
by pestilence or won't starve in famine. That's not the question. Remember,
the very nature of Revelation chapter six. Revelation chapter six
is not the worst that nature can bring against people.

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It's not the worst that man can bring against people.
That's not the picture. And Revelation chapter six that scroll
has been open in their seals that are being broken,
and that had to do with both judgment and inheritance.
And so God is judging a sinn world, and he
is using these things to judge that sinful world. So

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the thing that we fear in Revelation chapter six is
not just dying. That's why people are crying out, make
the mountains fall on us. People will seek death, and
people are seeking death by the way, suicide off the charts.

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The question is not who can get through this thing
and not die, but who can walk through this period
of God judging the world and stand on the other side.

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That's salvation. That's salvation. God forbid that a man should
walk through a war, live to a ripe old age,
and then die and go to hell. God forbid that

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a family would survive a hurricane, an earthquake, or a
tornado and yet face judgment on that day. God forbid
that we would survive famine and pestilence only to face

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the second death when he says who can stand the
question is who can be saved spiritually? From this, we
see that one thing they're marked by is that commonality

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of their identity. But secondly, the commonality of their salvation,
and what we're looking for is spiritual salvation, not just
physical deliference. But then there is the common righteousness of
the multitude. There's a common righteousness of the multitude. Look
with me again in verse fourteen. These are the ones

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coming out of the Great tribulation. What is it about them?
They have washed their robes and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb. That's how they're saved. They've
washed their robes and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb. Notice this that they are all clothed
in white. The symbolism there is clear they walk in righteousness.

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There's John's test again in First John. By the way,
same author, same author of Revelation wrote First John, there's
this test. Do you walk in righteousness? Listen to our
confession on this particular question. They who are united to
Christ effectually called and regenerated, having a new heart and

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a new spirit created in them through the virtue of
Christ's death and resurrection are also farther, sanctified really and
personally through the same virtue, by His word and spirit
dwelling in them. The dominion of the whole body of
sin is destroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more
and more weakened and mortified, and they more and more

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quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice
of all true holiness, without which no man shall see
the Lord. You will not see the Lord without true holiness.
You will not see the Lord without white robes. Their

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robes have been made white. They walk in righteousness. Here's
how John puts it in First John chapter three. Again,
this is one of those tests that's reiterated again and
again and again. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning
also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. You know that He
appeared in order to take away sins, and in him
there is no sin. No one who abides in Him

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keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has
either seen Him or known him. Little children, let no
one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he
is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of
the devil. For the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy
the works of the devil. No one born of God

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makes a practice of sinning, for god Seed abides in him,
and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been
born of God. By this, it is evident who are
the children of God? And who are the children of
the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God.
Nor is the one who does not love his brother
like can't get that other test in there at the end.

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That's the white robe. The white robe is the righteousness
in which we walk. Do you walk in righteousness? Now
before you answer the question, because here's a dead giveaway,
The dead giveaway that you either don't understand this theologically
or you're not genuinely converted. Someone says, do you walk

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in righteousness? If your first response is nobody's perfect, you
either don't understand this or you're not a Christian. That's
not the Christian response. Do you walk in righteousness when
nobody's perfect? Don't judge me, you know. If the Christian

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response is do you walk in righteousness by God's grace?
But not like I desire to not like I desire to,
but God is forming that righteousness in me. I'm not
who I ought to be, but thank God, I'm not

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who I used to be. Amen, there is right righteousness
formed in us. We see that righteousness formed in us,
and those around us see that righteousness formed in us.
We don't just walk around pointing to other people who
do worse things than we do in order to justify ourselves.
We don't just walk around pointing to the sin that

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exists in the world that is worse than ours in
order to justify ourselves. We don't just point to the
fact that nobody's perfect. In order to justify ourselves. We
recognize that God is at work in us, that he
is making us righteous, and we longed for righteousness. We
yearn for righteousness, and the more we see it in ourselves,

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the more we yearn for it. That's the white robe.
Who can stand the one whose robes are not just right?
They've been made white? Did you catch that? 'n just
say their robes are white? Their robes have been made white.

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You don't make your own robes white. It's not your righteousness,
it's an alien righteousness. Amen. All have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God. We find in Romans,
all of them, every last one of them. There's none
who is good. We're all washed. One Grintiene sixth nineth

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through eleven. I love this passage of scripture. Or do
you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the
kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral,
nor idolaters, nor adulters, nor men who practice almost sexuality,
nor thieves, nor the greedy nor drunkard. By the way,
very familiar, very similar list at the end of Revelation,

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Nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
And such were some of you. But you were washed,
you were sanctified, You were justified in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the spirit of our God.
You were washed. Your robes white because they've been washed. Amen,

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your robes are white because they've been washed. They have
not always been white, but they've become white. There are
two problems here. If you're an individual who's not walking
in righteousness, you don't have a white robe, or if

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you're an individual who believes that your robe has always
been white. Both of those are out of bounds. Amen.
One of the scariest things that people can ever say
is I've always been a Christian. I've been a Christian
my whole life. Then you don't know what a Christian is.
A Christian is not one who just was born with

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white robes. A Christian is one who is born again
with white robes. Amen, our robes were made white. We
understand that we are sinners. We understand that we do
not deserve to stand on that day. We understand that

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we deserve everything that we saw in Revelation six and
then some. But our robes that were stained with sin
have been made white. Oh, precious is the flow that

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makes me white as snow nor the fountain. I know
nothing but the blood of Jesus, and that's the final answer.
Our robes are washed in the blood of the Lamb,
he says. They've come out of the Great Tribulation and
one they have washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb. It's the blood of

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the Lamb that makes the robes white. It's Christ's vicarious
death for our sin. It's his passive and active obedience
that makes our robes white. If we're trusting in anything
else that goes back to John's first test. Do we
believe in the Christ of scripture or are we trusting

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in another. This is interesting because it takes us back
to something that John has already said in Revelation and
Revelation chapter one, verse four through six. Grace to you
and peace from Him who is and who was, and
who is to come, and from the seventh Spirit, who
are before his throne, And from Jesus Christ, the faithful Witness,
the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of kings on
the earth. To him who loves us and freed us

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from our sins by his blood and made us a
kingdom of priests to his God and Father. To him
be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. He freed
us from our sins by his blood. In other words,
when we look here at this symbolism of our robes
being made white by his blood, you go back to
what He has done for us in freeing us from

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our sins by his blood. We understand that the reference
here is of Christ, by his blood, dying for our
sin and therefore cleansing us by his imputed righteousness. Replace
our faith in Christ and Christ alone for our salvation,

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and He cleanses us, and we actually become what we
have been declared to be. Christ is our righteousness Romans
five p. Nineteen. For as by one man's disobedience, the
many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience,

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the many will be made righteous. Second Corinthians five twenty one.
For our sake, He made him to be sin, who
knew no sin, so that in him we might become
the righteousness of God. It is the blood of Jesus
that is our saving righteousness. Finally, Romans five nine. Since
therefore we have now been justified by His blood, much

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more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath
of God? Does that not summarize at all? We're saved
from the wrath of God. We stand on that day
because of the blood of Christ, which takes us to
that last test that we haven't mentioned yet. We endure,

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We overcome the world. That's the picture of standing and
making it through this tribulation. We remain, We overcome, we persevere,
We endure by His grace and for His glory. Beloved,

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if you were counting on or trusting in anything other
than this, my admonition to you today is think again.
If your answer to the question will you be in
that number was based on anything that you've done to
your own robes, my response to you is repent. Repent,

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turn away from trusting in yourself and turn to trusting
in Christ. If your answer is that you are hoping
to be able to stand on that day because you're
fighting with everything that you have within you in order
to be worthy on that day, then my answer to
you is shame on you for thinking so little of

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the holiness and righteousness and wrath of Almighty God that
you actually believe there's something in you that can satisfy it.
I hope is built on nothing less than Jesus's blood
and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but

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holy lean on Jesus's name, on Christ, the solid rock
I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. That's our hope.
And those are the ones who stand on that day.
That's the answer to the angel's question, who are these

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and where have they come from? They've come from the
Great Tribulation, and they've made it through. And there's one reason,
and one reason only. They are washed in the blood
of the Lamb. That's the shorthand answer to Revelation six seventeen.

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Who on earth can stand the answer, sir? Those washed
by the blood of the Lamb, those sealed, set apart
by God, those preserved, those saved, those rescued from God
by God. There's the beauty of it. What are you

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saved from? You're saved from God. What do you saved by?
You're saved by God by the way. Who else could
save you from God's hand? We hope in this, and
we hope in nothing else. But the good news is

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this is more than enough to hope in, so we
need nothing else. Let's pray