Postponement does not mean cancellation. The four winds are held back until the sealing has taken place, and then the trumpet judgments will burst forth upon the earth.1 What the storm of God’s judgment is to entail will then be revealed in detail. The servants are sealed first, however. There were seven thousand who did not bow the knee to Baal, even during the godless reign of Ahab and Jezebel,2 and there were a hundred prophets hidden by Obadiah.3 Daniel’s friends were protected in the fire; they were surrounded by the fire but protected by the fourth man whose countenance looked like that of a Son of the gods.4 While the great multitude will shortly be seen by John, he hears the number of those who are sealed.5 The multitude is too numerous to be counted, but the ‘hundred and forty-four thousand’ can be. The multitude comes from every people, tribe, nation and language and those who are sealed are from the children of Israel.
Since the State of Israel proclaimed independence in 1948, and Israel has appeared once again on the world scene as a people and a nation, it has becoming increasingly clear that God is faithful to His Covenants with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and that He will fulfil all His promises to Israel. In the same way He will fulfil all the promises He made to the Church of Jesus Christ, and to you and me personally. For He is a faithful God.
Yet for centuries, great sections of Christianity have been taught that Israel was replaced by the Church, circumcision was replaced by baptism, and the Covenants with Israel were transferred to the New Covenant with the Church. These teachings are not correct. In fact, they have caused rivers of Jewish blood to flow in the lands of Christianity. In this chapter of the Book of Revelation, we see that those who are sealed come from the twelve tribes of Israel! The expression ‘children of Israel’ occurs 388 times in the Old Testament and simply means “Israel”. And when in the New Testament, “Israel” is mentioned, it means literally “Israel, the twelve tribes of Israel, the Jewish people”.6 The expression ‘the living God’ also points in that direction.7 Israel appears later in the Book of Revelation with the Name of the Father on their forehead.8 Revelation 22:4 speaks also about the sign of God and of the Lamb on the foreheads of the the redeemed. Also the worshippers of the beast, receive a sign, a mark on their forehead and/or on their right hand.9
Israel was instructed in Deuteronomy to bind the words of God for a sign on their hand and their forehead, between the eyes.10 Those who are sealed from Israel are sealed on their forehead and their hand.The worshippers of the beast also have signs on right hand and/or foreheads. They are totally and full heartedly dedicated to the loose life-style and occult and the materialistic and morally depraved liberal ethics of the ‘New-Age-in-the- name-of-man’.
Even though Israel’s return to the land is not mentioned in the Book of Revelation, though it is mentioned in countless prophecies in the Old Testament, Israel’s presence in ‘their own land’ (Ezekiel 37:21, for instance) is constantly presupposed and assumed.11
• Used in Judaism, tefillin are a set of small black boxes containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the following four texts: Exodus 13:2–10 and 13:11–16, Deuteronomy 6:4–9 and 11:13–21. The head-tefillah or shel rosh is placed above the forehead. The arm-tefillah or shel yad, the sign on the hand, is placed on the upper left arm, and the prayer strap is wrapped seven times round the underarm with a coil around the finger of the hand.
• Head and hand, heart and deed are dedicated to the Lord. In Ezekiel 9:1–11, Revelation 7:3 and 14:1, only the head is mentioned, as the place of sealing.
Bible References:
1.Revelation 8:6–9:21 2.1 Kings 19:18; Romans 11:4–5 3.1 Kings 18:4 4.Daniel 3:25 5.Revelation 7:4 and 9 6.See Luke 1:16; Acts 5:21, 9:15, 10:36; Hebrews 11:22 and Revelation 2:14, 21:12 7.See Revelation 7:2a 8.Revelation 14:1 9.Revelation 13:16 10.Deuteronomy 6:1–8; Exodus 13:1–6 11.E.g. Revelation 11:1–14, 14:20, 16:16
