The 144,000 - Revelation 14:1-5

Stained glass showing Lamb of God with vexillum and chalice, from chapel that used to be part of a convent (now a Baptist church and school complex) in El Cajon, California (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Can I admit that this subject has brought me much irritation. At the last church I attended the pastor taught on Revelation but he made everything in the book symbolic of something, That might not have been a problem, however he never bothered to define where he got this information. Which leads me to say this, don't make statements, trying to pass it off as truth, without providing evidence for what you are saying (This is called conjecture and makes you a false teacher.) Write with the determination of providing two or three witnesses.

Although my former pastor attributed all of Revelation to symbology, that certainly does not make it the case. However, symbology, history, analogy, and types can not be excluded. It is all in there, and must be considered. I will try to help you understand it.

The 144,000

Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as first fruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless. (Revelation 14:1-5 ESV)

Sometimes I like to work from the assumption that I just stumbled upon a section of the bible. If you attend church then you are aware that you constantly sit by those that never open their bibles. How can you know that? Just listen to the statements they make and questions they ask; anyone who has read their bible, would never ask the questions many of them do.

Assuming you were that person and were directed to Revelation 14: 1-5, how would you come to understand what you were reading?

Some quick keys to understanding Revelation.

1. Maintain the attitude that this is meant for you to understand. If you do not understand then humble yourself and get a book to help. Of the thousands out there, I strongly suggest The Islamic Antichrist, and the Mideast Beast, by Joel Richardson.
2. Know this, the Apostle John was an evangelist to the Jewish community (yes I am taking liberties in making this statement, but the evidence is there.) That means that he wrote in a language that meant something to the Jewish readers of this letter. The symbols, such as a lamb that had been slain; the beast with seven heads that we see in Revelation 13, and even the 144,000 are intended to strike an immediate and scriptural chord within the heart of a Jew.
3. While the book itself is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, it is also prophecy. Prophecy covers a tremendous amount of ground from the past to the future. But prophecy to a Jew is repeatable patterns, not flash and bright lights. Remember, no one in the old testament was convicted on the basis of one witness alone; God knows the heart and therefore demands witnesses. This works the same with prophecy. You will find these same phrases - if you look for them - scattered throughout the Old Testament in the writings of Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and so many others.

With that said, let's dive in. We will attempt to take this verse by verse.

Revelation 14:1 KJV And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads.

There was a time that I would not have had any idea how to interpret this without some help. Fortunately those days are gone, but maybe it does not need interpretation as much as it needs an understanding. As a young reader, with the understanding I had, I read it as a literal event.

You find the first reference to these Jewish men in Revelation 7 and there God holds back destruction while he marks them. Because I had nothing to show what that marking aspect looked like, I just took it and ran with it.

Now I find them, and God, standing on Mount Zion.

Do a word search for the phrase “Mount Zion” and you will find 21 verses, most of which are found in the Old Testament – the Torah and the Tanakh.

One of the first I found is:

And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD will do this. (2 Kings 19:30-31 ESV)

This is one of those prophecy establishing word pictures that a Jew would have picked up on. In case you do not know, Jewish boys are made to go synagogue to learn and memorize the law and prophets. This is accomplished by age twelve as an aspect of their transition into manhood.

While Isaiah 10:12 says nothing about the 144,000 who are standing on Mount Zion the following verse indicates what happens after the Lamb conducts business. (Conducting business seems very polite considering that the Lord comes back to kill all those who would dare fight against him.)

Isaiah 10:12 ESV When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes.

Apparently his interactions with the 144,000 come before he finalizes the punishment of the arrogant king. If you have read the Revelation before, then you are aware that at the end of the seven-year period the Antichrist and the False prophet are thrown into the lake of fire – forever.

The IVP Bible Background Commentary tells us that:

“Mount Zion was the Temple Mount (sometimes loosely encompassing all Jerusalem), thus applied to the heavenly temple in the present (Rev_11:19) but pointing to the new Jerusalem of the future (Rev_21:2), a hope shared by nearly all ancient Jews, who longed for the restoration of their city and its sanctuary.”

And this is backed up by the Prophet Isaiah: 

And it is literal, for it is where the Lord of hosts will reign.

Isaiah 24:23 ESV Then the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed, for the LORD of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and his glory will be before his elders.

However, Mount Zion is also symbolic, as John also sees the 144,000 before the throne, which causes us to include the throne as an aspect of Mount Zion.

I find several things grabbing my attention as I read Revelation 14:1.

Revelation 14:1 KJV And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads.

• “I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Zion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand,”
  Knowing that Jerusalem will be destroyed, I see a remnant coming out of Jerusalem, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. Does this tell us that there will only be 144,000 survivors, and that there will only be Jewish men? Not at all. We are told by the prophet Zechariah that one-third of Israel survives.

  Zechariah 13:8-9 KJV And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. (9) And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.
• “a Lamb stood on the mount Zion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand.”
  From this I can learn that John is seeing into heaven, because that is the only place in Revelation that the Lord appears as a lamb.

  Revelation 5:6 KJV And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

Other prophets describe him as a lamb: Isaiah 53:7-8; John 1:29, John 1:36; Acts 8:32; 1Peter 1:19-20

• “with him an hundred forty and four thousand,”
  One might make the assumption that they are with Him in heaven and are therefore resurrected. Scripture gives us no clear insight on this.
• “having his Father's name written in their foreheads.”
  I covered God marking people earlier in this post. Cain was marked to protect him. Interesting isn't it.

What else can I know about these 144,000.

Our first occurrence finds them in Revelation chapter seven.

Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, saying, "Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads." And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel: (Revelation 7:2-4 ESV)

Should you decide to read this in your bible, you will find that the specifics about them go on to verse eight, and describes 12,000 taken from designated ancestral groupings (tribes) of Israel. How vital that is to our understanding I do not know. What is important to me is this: “they come from every tribe of the sons of Israel.” There are no lost tribes.

I have come to see that my former pastor was not alone in his thinking, as others apparently think these 144,000 are merely symbolic. I believe my former pastor is a fairly intelligent guy, but if you cannot backup your statements with some solid evidence then you need to shut up, and he did not. Having read several commentaries on the 144,000 I believe I can see where he got what he was preaching, however that does not make it right; and if you are a student of the bible, you can find it very annoying.

Here is what the IVP Bible Background Commentary, and a few others imply:

The Sealing of 144,000 Servants - One can take the 144,000 either consistently literally (literally twelve thousand male Jewish virgins from each tribe—Rev_14:4) or consistently symbolic (the spiritual people of God, not literally 144,000). (Those who take the number but not the ethnicity, gender and sexual history literally are inconsistent.) Against taking it literally is Revelation’s usage elsewhere of “servants” (Rev_1:1; Rev_6:11), suggesting that they constitute the whole of the saved community (Rev_7:3-4). But whether they represent the innumerable multitude of Rev_7:9 or the restored remnant of ethnic Israel remains debated.

A few questions about the logic of these 144,000 being entirely symbolic

If this group was entirely symbolic, why would you have to protect them from four angels that are here to harm the earth? The act of harming the earth is an aspect of God's wrath upon the nations, and the Israel for rejecting him. God is protecting 144,000 “virgin Jews” (this may have some symbology also, such as those that have not rejected God.)

If, the 144,000 represents the “whole of the saved community”, and the general consensus is that the saved community will be caught up, then why would you need to protect them from bad things that happen after the rapture? You wouldn't would you; there would be no need. So that really does not make sense does it.

However, if the number was representative of the martyred who are slain for their testimony, then we have a problem with that logic as well, because God does not protect them from harm, and protecting these marked ones is a common assumption (I am sure that we get this idea of protection from God marking Cain). In neither chapter seven or fourteen do we see them protected, but merely designated for God. Another assumption, and quite possibly a good one, is that they function on earth as witnesses, but most specifically to the Jewish community. That would make sense but there is still nothing to show that they are excluded from harm, nor is there anything that indicates how long they stay here on earth after they are marked. I am bringing this up because I have heard all kinds of speculation espoused adamantly as religious folk try to push their theories and understanding off for truth.

“Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads."

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree. Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, saying, "Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads." (Revelation 7:1-3 ESV)

These angels are released with the express purpose of destroying the earth. And yet, just prior to this destruction, God intentionally seals 144,000 Jewish men.

It seems John's attention is pulled back to heaven because of a voice, a voice like a mixture of sounds.

Revelation 14:2-3 ESV And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, (3) and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.

Almost as soon as they have been sealed, we find them redeemed from earth. The implications are that they are no longer on earth. This again demonstrates our assumptions. It seems fair and logical to build a chronological timeline and place them on it. The problem is God controls both the timeline and calendar on which it is based, and scripture does not always lay things out so clearly for us. Sure, there are many points in which specifics are detailed such as: Israel's release from Babylonian captivity, or the Messiah's triumphant entry into Jerusalem, but we have no clear point at which we can say the rapture comes here and therefore all these other things can find themselves a spot on our timeline.

Revelation 14:3-4 MSG and the harpists singing a new song before the Throne and the Four Animals and the Elders. Only the Hundred and Forty-four Thousand could learn to sing the song. They were bought from earth, (4) lived without compromise, virgin-fresh before God. Wherever the Lamb went, they followed. They were bought from humankind, first fruits of the harvest for God and the Lamb.

“lived without compromise”

How do I relate to that? We were all born into a corrupted nature, therefore it seems impossible to imagine someone living without compromise.

Zephaniah 3:13 KJV The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.

We already know that some will try to assign these characteristics symbolically to the church. If you try to assign the characteristics of these chosen Jews to the church, it simply does not fit because they have too many human characteristics, therefore I will cling hard to a literal interpretation of the 144,000.

Consider an irony.

God has written His name on their foreheads, and no, we do not know what that looks like; who will be able to see it (we know these four angels can see it); or how it gets there. However, Satan/the beast goes around trying to copy God's idea, by having people marked that have converted to a worship of the beast. (Again, I point out that I believe this is Islam doing this and the beast is Allah.)

One of the things I tell people, is that the Apostle John fully intended for his writing to strike the ears of Jewish converts. You can pick up on this idea because he uses terminology and symbolism found throughout the law and the prophets; books any Jew would have been forced to memorize by the time they were twelve.

One example of this marking of the head is found in the Prophet Ezekiel's writings where judgment could not begin until the foreheads of the righteous (those who mourned over the sin of their land) were marked.

Ezekiel 9:4-5 ESV And the LORD said to him, "Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it." (5) And to the others he said in my hearing, "Pass through the city after him, and strike. Your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity.

Another example of marking a person comes from Genesis.

Genesis 4:15 ESV Then the LORD said to him, "Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him.

We still do not know what that mark looked like, but the imagery is well entrenched in the Jewish mind. It is a shame that it is not in ours.

Another thing that we are in a loss to figure out, is when these are brought before the throne.

We like to assume that they are protected from what ever comes, but you do not see that in scripture. Many seem to believe that they will serve as witnesses to the world. If they do serve in that function I believe it would be to the Jews. However there is no clear time frame between their being marked and finding them before the throne.

and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. (Revelation 14:3 ESV)

Considering that this song is for them alone, I see no reason to lose sleep over what they are singing.

It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

Revelation 14:4 ESV It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as first fruits for God and the Lamb,

They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. This is the relationship that we were designed for – sheep in love with the shepherd.

There may be a clue about the timing of their departure from earth, because it says they are first fruits. If they, in a sense, are like the first offering of many. Not that we are directly going to be sacrificed, but then God can do what he wants with us, can't he. Because this takes place within the framework of the seven-year period, then the implications of those being offered up as an offering to the Lord would apply to anyone coming to Jesus Christ during this time. They are called the martyred saints.

The 144,000 are blameless before the throne of God.

Revelation 14:5 AMP No lie was found to be upon their lips, for they are blameless (spotless, untainted, without blemish) before the throne of God.

Two things catch my attention when I consider this. Those that are in Christ were first forgiven – no longer guilty for the sin nature that was handed down to us (that happened on the cross.) Over and above our own personal compulsions, this sin comes through being born into the earth. So to will we who have turned out lives over to Jesus Christ stand blameless before the throne. Now, what did these Jewish men do to get such a status? I think the obvious answer lies in our relationship with the shepherd.

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Something I said triggered him off.

Something I said during bible study triggered it off, and although I cannot remember the verse reference he used in rebuttal, the theme went like this:

Matthew 7:21-23 NASB "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. (22) "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' (23) "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'

His rebuttal was directed at two things.

1. Not everyone will enter the kingdom of heaven.
   And
2. A an underlying, massive rejection by Jesus/God saying, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME,'

I think I have shared previously how broken I was. I had to relearn who this God was that loved me; in doing so I found a God of mercy beyond my comprehension. Maybe my eyes finally opened and I could see the God of mercy I had never seen before, but as I said I was a broken man with a broken understanding, and the only God I knew was a God of judgment and punishment.

We, as children would have to say this cutesy little prayer at night.

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

If I should die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take

Sounds benign enough, but if you are raised with the concept of God sending you to hell over one little thing, such as, taking His name in vain - taking his name in vain was defined by my mothers personal morality standards, which were unwritten, seemingly impromptu rules that she dished out as she manipulated us children. 

If I am honest, this persons interruption, which assured that everyone was focused on him and his immense scriptural understanding, while I was leading bible study made me furious. I had to choose to be diplomatic and polite when everything in me wanted to lash out. 

What got my attention as he was taking issue was the emphasis that he put on, “not everyone will enter the kingdom of heaven;”as though this applied to believers. This rhetoric was associated with some other comments he made, the passage that he referred to, and Jesus speaking about Judas in John 16 and 17. 

As I said, the basis of his rant effectively followed the same theme as Matthew 7. Matthew 7 was a continuation of Christ's sermon on the mount.

It would seem that the emphasis is on the true believer and what it is that identifies us as such.

True disciples of Christ will be men and women cautious in their judgment of others; conscious of their own faults; confident and earnest in prayer; wary of false teachers and hypocritical profession; building all eternal hopes upon the firm Rock, faith in the Word of God and Christ Jesus.

Summarized Bible, Complete Summary of the Bible, By KEITH L. BROOKS

If I started at Matthew 7:1-2, the opening statement says, “Do not judge, so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured back to you.”

But the person choosing to disagree was not concerned with judgment, or why God did not know these people he is turning away. He seemed to focus on the idea that these were believers, not meeting some standard, getting turned away from the kingdom. 

I like to think about assertions and passages like this in terms of context. Even though it was a mixed crowd that sat and listened to Jesus this day, it safe to assume that it is primarily a Jewish crowd, a religious crowd, and nothing Jesus said got past them, and it appropriately stung. 

Some purposefully listened with a critical ear; pharisees who stood by were looking for excuses to kill him.

Sadly a belief that focuses on meeting some standard is based in works and our salvation is not by works, but by faith.

Acts 13:38-39 MSG I want you to know, my very dear friends, that it is on account of this resurrected Jesus that the forgiveness of your sins can be promised. (39) He accomplishes, in those who believe, everything that the Law of Moses could never make good on. But everyone who believes in this raised-up Jesus is declared good and right and whole before God.

Romans 5:1 YLT Having been declared righteous, then, by faith, we have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Romans 9:30 GW So what can we say? We can say that non-Jewish people who were not trying to gain God's approval won his approval, an approval based on faith.

Jesus appeared to Saul (the Pharisee) as he was on his way to Damascus to persecute those of the way. He told Saul what his job was going to be, and this is what he said,

Acts 26:18 NASB to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.'

Perhaps I have established that who we are and how we got here is based solely upon our belief in, Jesus Christ, the one that had to do the hard work (suffering severe blows and death) on our behalf. The closest that anyone came to being a believer prior to the Holy Spirit coming might be the disciples. Jesus referred to them as, “those whom you have given me.” I am not clear on this so I can only speak from assumption. 

We cannot make anything close to that assumption with this crowd. They came because they wanted what he could give them, food and healing. They wanted little else.

I think it is safe to say that Jesus statement, “ I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME..”, had nothing to do with followers of Jesus Christ.

Matthew 7:21-23 begins much earlier in the chapter, but lets just focus on some close proximity statements.

Matthew 7:15-16 GW "Beware of false prophets. They come to you disguised as sheep, but in their hearts they are vicious wolves. (16) You will know them by what they produce. "People don't pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, do they?

I want you to consider several things here.

1. False prophets. They probably look normal.

God attempted to define for Moses and Aaron things that would indicate that someone was a prophet. You can find this in Numbers 12:6. The problem is that should you challenge someone about their qualifications they could tell you anything to appease you.

Deuteronomy 13:1-5 NIV If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, (2) and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, "Let us follow other gods" (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," (3) you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. (4) It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. (5) That prophet or dreamer must be put to death for inciting rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. That prophet or dreamer tried to turn you from the way the LORD your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you.

If you read the passage above then you picked up on two things. This person attempts to lead you away from the true God, and you are to get them out of your midst. 

(I am not giving you the carte blanche to harm anyone.)

2. They come disguised as sheep. I mentioned that they probably look normal. Have you got some perception of what a Christian looks like? Throw it out because it is wrong. We are all shapes and sizes, and some of us are tattered, while others wear fine clothes. None of that makes a stitch of difference in God's eyes. If he needs you appropriately dressed, to stand before kings, then he will make sure that happens. What you need to understand is that as you sit there in your comfortable church pew, you could be sitting next to a wolf in sheeps clothing and not know it.
   
   
3. You will know them by what they produce. Jesus, it would seem, threw a little sarcasm at us when he said, "People don't pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, do they? So the wolf will be trying to get you work in opposition to God's standard, a baseline laid out by His word. Sadly that requires that you READ God's word for yourself and not be dependent upon what some “teacher” tells you; that includes me.

What kinds of things can you expect to see being produced when the wolf gets involved?

Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 

Romans 1:25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-

Romans 1:29-32 NIV They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, (30) slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; (31) they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. (32) Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

You can find more should you choose to look, things that speak to the works of the flesh. Now those things are covered in the passages from Romans but just to show you I will give a little more.

Galatians 5:19-21 NIV The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; (20) idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions (21) and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

I can imagine what many are saying right now, "but these are works of the flesh, common to every man", and you would be right, but they are in total opposition to God, and the reason we were born into sin, for Adam did exactly this, when he chose to do his own selfish thing, allowing for sin to enter into the world through man. Life and liberty re-entered through Jesus Christ's death and resurrection.

Perhaps the question you should be asking is: What is a false prophet?

In Acts 13 we see Saul (he had not changed his name yet) and Barnabas traveling, and teaching God's word to the Jews (That may be important).

Acts 13:6-12 NIV They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, (7) who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. (8) But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. (9) Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, (10) "You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? (11) Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun." Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. (12) When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.

Did you notice that the man Bar-Jesus was a Jew. A wolf in sheep's clothing. 

So the original premise was that, according to the guy that disrupted the flow of bible study that day, some Christians will not be allowed into the kingdom of heaven. Let's go back to what might have been his backing for such a statement.

Matthew 7:21-23 NASB "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. (22) "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' (23) "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'

If I look back at the experience of Barnabas and Saul (Paul), then what I see in this man Elymas, is a man, learned in the Talmud, the law and prophets; able to argue against Saul's teachings (you really should be very skillful in the same literature that you wish to argue against if you want to defeat or discourage someone), and he performs amazing “miracles” that aid in his presentation and the contestation of others, at this moment the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. 

Elymas was not a believer in Jesus Christ at this point and perhaps not a fair argument. The writer of Hebrews, in chapter 13:5, to followers of Christ (believers), states, 'because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."'

Our men's bible study has been slogging our way through the book of John. But that gospel is John's demonstration that Jesus, on this earth, was God, and therefore a huge and significant demonstration of God's character as seen in Jesus' actions and words.

John 10:27-30 NIV My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. (28) I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. (29) My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. (30) I and the Father are one."

If I based my understanding about the security of my relationship on this alone I could be confident, but I have showed you more. 

The idea and reference for God casting aside some who claim to be his comes out the Great White Throne judgment. This happens at the end of the millennial reign. Look this up in Revelation 20:11–15. Jesus was talking about this very moment when he described a separation of the sheep from the goats. (Matthew 25:31 – 46) 

Matthew 25:31 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.

It is possible to develop side essays on virtually everything that shows up on these pages; that was not the point. The point was to address the question of whether God will choose to throw us aside someday. Should you think that your pettiest of sins will change his heart about you, you are wrong. Christ's death was an all inclusive payment for the sins of the whole world, then and forever, so you are okay in that regard, as long as you have accepted Jesus Christ as the one who paid that price for you. 

Another strong argument as to how much he loves and cares for you comes from that famous verse, Romans 3:16. God, so loved a broken and unloving world, that he, regardless of how that world might trash his love, sent his only Son as a sacrifice to save it. 

He cares for you, and should you choose to follow him, he will never let go of you. In this you can trust.

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