No One Can Number
Pastor Marq Toombs • February 28, 2021
Sermon Overview
REVELATION 7:9–14
In this sermon we consider the magnificent saving grace of God and his desire to save humanity to the degree that no one can number those he saves. This passage highlights how God remained faithful to his promises to Abraham, that descendants would be like the stars in the heavens that he couldn't possibly number.
Sermon Transcript
Grace and peace to be with you from the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's wonderful to be with you this Lord's day. We're going to enter into a story today that I hope you will find both shocking and surprising. And I hope that you will have a broader and grander vision of the love and grace of God by the end of the sermon today.
I thought of starting this message in this way. Hello, my name is Marq, and I'm a math-o-phobic. And it's not that I hate math, it's just that I don't have the brain-power to do math. I'm the kind of person that, if you start to tell me any number, any number at all, by the time you finish telling me those numbers I will have forgotten the first numbers you told me. So, if you're wondering why I never call you, it's because you probably didn't text your phone number to me or write it down, and so I just don't know it. If you want me to have your number so we can text and be friends in that way, then you're gonna have to do something more concrete than just say, "My number is whatever it is" because I'm gonna forget.
Math has always been a struggle for me throughout the course of my life. But, I tell you, I take great comfort in knowing that I'm not alone in having math problems. I learned recently that C.S. Lewis was also terrible at math. In fact, he was so terrible at math, that he struggled to get into Oxford. He failed the entrance exam twice because of his abysmal math skills. And so C.S. Lewis and I have abysmal math skills in common, along with our faith in Jesus, and some other things. But, I certainly don't have his brain power in other ways, either.
I want us to talk about math a little bit, because today in the sermon, we see in this sermon text, that there is the word 'arithmetic'. It doesn't show up in English, but it's there in the Greek. And the word arithmetic -where you see number in the passage we just heard, that's the word arithmetic in Greek. And it's a verb that talks about counting or numbering, and so we're gonna try to do some of that today.
Unfortunately, in my life, my math skills have not advanced very much. I'm a product of Sesame Street and Electric Company. And I can do a little bit of math. And so I wanna say to all the children who are here, I cannot say with any measure of confidence that I ever rose above the level of the Count's Counting School, where vhat you learn vreally counts.
So you don't have to be a math whiz to live, but in order to live, you got to do a little bit of math even when you walk with Christ. And so today we're gonna crunch some numbers and do some math, but I assure you that no matter how old or how young you are, you will all be able to do the math that we're going to do today. And you will all know the answer to the problem that we're going to address.
In this series we've been talking about what we can and cannot do. And we're not talking about what God gives us permission to do, and what he doesn't want us to. We're talking about our abilities and inabilities. And we've highlighted many different times, the inabilities that we have, to see, and to enter the Kingdom of God on our own - to draw near to Christ on our own. We've also seen the abilities of God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And that's just a different way to talk about both bad news and good news. The bad news has to do with our inabilities, the good news has to do with God's ability to overcome our inabilities on our behalf, and that's what we call grace. Why does God do that? Well he does it because he loves us. And why does he love us? He loves us because he wants to, not because we're so loveable.
Now I imagine that, as you've been tracking along with us in this series and listening to all the, "No one can enter. no one can see, no one can draw near to Jesus." You might have been left with the impression, that since no one can do these things, then very few people will ever be able to do these things. Well, I want to address that today, and see if that is what the scriptures tell us. One reason stuff like this makes us feel nervous, is this: I'll give you three quick reasons.
One is if no one can experience or enter the Kingdom of God on their own, if no one can come to Jesus, unless the Spirit of God enables him, then doesn't that mean that only a tiny select few people will ever be saved?
Two, if salvation is totally out of our hands, if it's something that I am not able to do for myself, or contribute to in some way on my own, then doesn't that mean that I must trust God completely with my salvation? Which raises the question: Is God trustworthy to even bring salvation to me?
And then three. If salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, then doesn't that mean that only God is able to give salvation? And that only God can give it to whomever he wishes to give it.
Now, this is where things get really sticky and scary for people. And here's why: because this is where our view of God is not only tested, but our view of God is exposed. And I want to say to you that what it all boils down to, is your view of God. What do you believe in your heart of hearts, about the love, the grace, the mercy, the wrath, the anger, the justice of God. What do you believe in your heart of hearts? Is God selfish and stingy with His salvation? Is God generous or lavish with His salvation? Is God a grumpy miser like Ebenezer Scrooge, or, is He so generous and merciful that He's able to 'make it rain' with joy, peace and love? Is he reluctant to spend and share what he has, in order to hoard it for himself? Or is he so kind and generous, that he would give you grace and mercy even now? The question is God a minimalist when it comes to salvation, or is he a maximalist when it comes to saving people like you and like me?
Well, your answers go a long way towards exposing what you really truly believe about God in your heart of hearts. The same is true for me by the way. And if I'm judging the room correctly, from judging my own heart correctly, I know that our heads tell us one thing, and I know that our hearts tell us something different. I know that our experience tells us one thing, and I know that God's word tells us something else, and we feel the conflict within us, as we wrestle with these questions.
If salvation belongs to the Lamb on the throne, then will the number of those who are saved be few, or will it be many? If salvation belongs to God, then who can be saved?
Well to answer all of these sticky and thorny questions, let's walk back through the scriptures, and look at a few things. And I believe, that you are going to be both shocked and surprised, by what you see.
Let's start with what John saw. Here's a vision - we just heard the vision read, this beautiful passage of scripture. What did John see? John saw this massive gathering of people. And not just any kind of massive gathering of people. This is more than a rally. What he sees is a gathering of people, who have come from every walk of life, from every context in the world, from every kind of experience you can imagine. They come from every nook and cranny and corner of the world. He sees this massive gathering of people, standing before the throne of God, and the Lamb who is at the center of the throne.
He sees the varieties of people. Red and yellow, black and white, from all over the world. He saw rich people and poor people. He saw young people and old people, he saw men, women, and children all gathered before the Lamb. He saw a massive assembly of people, from every people, place, and position, that you can imagine.
He saw people from East Dallas. He saw people from Rockwall. He saw people from the deep forest, untouchables, who've drawn near to be touched by Christ. He saw people from Oaxaca, and Argentina, and Kenya, and Nigeria.
He saw Protestants and Evangelicals and charismatics and Baptists and Anglicans and Catholics, and he even saw Presbyterians. He saw the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, whose sins had been forgiven, who were living in expectation of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. All these people were members of the Church purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. This is the Church triumphant, that had overcome sin and death. The Church that had overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. These are the saints in heaven.
These are our family and friends, our forefathers who came before. These are future generations of people who will be gathered, by the Spirit and word of Christ. And they all have one thing in common, and what is it that they have in common? It's not the flags that are flying over their nations. It's not the color of skin, that they carry. It's not the sex and gender of their bodies. It's not politics and sports, it's not the language of tongues, not the customs of their tribes, it's not even the practices of their denominations. They all have one thing in common, one person in common. And by now you know who and what that is, don't you? They have in common the Lord Jesus Christ.
They are gathered before the throne of God, and the presence of the Lamb. They have in common Jesus because it is Jesus and his sacrificial death, his blood that was shed for them that brought them together in the presence of God and bound them together, as God's one holy people.
Jesus is the Lamb at the center of the throne of grace. He is called the Lamb because he suffered, and he was sacrificed on the cross, for the sins of the world. He laid down his life and shed his blood, in order to save all of his people. And all of those who stand before him, are representatives of people who were purchased by his blood. As the scripture says, "The Lamb was slain, and by his blood, he ransomed people for God from every tribe and every language and every people and every nation." This mega crowd represents all the people, from all over the world, throughout all history that Jesus came to save, past, present, and future.
Jesus Christ came into the world to save the broken, and to mend them. The sick and to heal them, the dead and to raise them to life. Jesus came to save sinners and make them saints; and this vision of this massive crowd, gathered in His presence tells us, that he didn't just make people saveable, but that he actually saved them and gathered them together in his Church; that he paid the price for their salvation, otherwise they would perish; that he showed them the way to come back home, otherwise they would have been lost forever and ever.
Jesus is the way the truth and the life. And he's lost none of all that the Father has given him. The Spirit works even now, with love and grace, throughout the world, to gather all the sinners for whom Jesus came to die. Jesus provides the means for them to clean up their life, and to put on the clothes of the saved. Otherwise, they would be wearing their dried-up fig leaves, and their filthy dirty rags, even now. But he's given them white robes to wear. And the vision says, Since God loved them and sent Jesus to save them, "they have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and made them white." And now they are doing, what you and I have gathered to do today, to worship and serve the true and living God.
Come back to this vision with me for a moment, and notice something. Sitting in front and center of this gigantic crowd, what did John see? He saw his old friend - Jesus. He saw his old friend Jesus in all of His glory and majesty. And he sees him again for the first time, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
If you go back to when John was just a young man, living in and around Galilee. One day he heard, a "baptist" preacher tell him to look at Jesus, and John never stopped looking. "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Got John's attention, he started looking at Jesus and he's still looking at him. And he had seen the grace and the glory of Jesus, magnify and expand -- so much so that what started out as a fledgling little movement in Galilee has become cosmic in scope. What started out as a little movement of just a few followers of Jesus here and there has become this grand vision of people from every walk of life, all over the world, who had begun to follow him, and John gets to see that.
And that's important for us to know. It's important for those of you who've been in the faith for five minutes to know, for those of you, who've been in the faith for 50 years to know, for those of you who've been longer. Because it's so easy to look around and despair. It's so easy to look around and think, What's it all been for? Is it worth it? What's happening here? What are the news reports telling us? What is the data telling us about the church? Is it getting larger - is it getting smaller? What's happening to Christ and his mission in the world? What's happening to the gospel in our day and age?
And John was able to look out, as an old man, and maybe he's looking back on his ministry, looking back around the world and wondering, "Was it wasted or was it worth it?" The vision is significant because John was able to see the truth about the intent and the extent of the sacrificial death of Jesus.
As for the intent of Jesus's sacrificial death, what do we know? We know Jesus laid down his life to take away the sins of people. And as for the extent of Jesus's sacrificial death, what do we know? We know that Jesus laid down his life to take away the sins of the whole world - the sins of people from every tribe, and language, and nation in the world. In other words, Jesus did not lay down his life for a tiny, meager, select, few, special class of sinner. No. He laid down his life for a gigantic, extravagant, elect, number of people.
The vision comforts John because it shows him things he was not able to see with his waking eyes, either as a young man or now as an old man. And it comforts us for the same reason.
Friends, despite appearances to the contrary, despite what your heart might tell you from time to time, despite the inner conflicts you might wrestle with - I want you to know that Jesus is saving and gathering all of his people. Every last one of them.
If the Lord were willing to pull back the veil, between Heaven and Earth and allow us to see the unseen things and take a peek at the spiritual realities, this is what we would see. We would see that those who are with us, are greater and more, than those who were with them.
Now, if all of this sounds too good to be true - if all of this is stretching your heart and your field of vision - Praise God! And in case anyone wonders "Well, is this just a thought of one pastor in Rockwall, Texas?" No, I'm simply echoing what John showed us in the vision. And I'm echoing what some of our forefathers in the Reformed Tradition said. Some of them say, and insist that the number of the saved will in fact exceed the number of the lost. Charles Spurgeon said that there will be more sinners in Heaven than sinners in Hell. And he says this with confidence and without flinching. How can we say such things? How can we say such things, judging by what we see, and what we hear and what we feel? Is it just wishful thinking? No, it's the truth, it's the truth. The sacrificial death of Jesus is far more intensive than we realize and far more inclusive than we dare imagine.
And that brings us to the moment that you've all been waiting for. The math problem of all math problems. I told you we're gonna do some math today. And now that we've laid out a massive word problem, this is where the math kicks in. The Greek word for number in this passage is a verb, it's an action word. And our English word for arithmetic comes from this word. And what does Jesus say, for those of us who were interested in doing the math, on the number of the saved? The vision says that "John saw a great multitude that no one can number". It's a great multitude that no one can count.
In my experience in Christian ministry, I've met people that have tried to draw the circle of fellowship so narrow, that only they would fit in it - and no one else. And what is John showing us? What has Jesus revealed to John? That you can't draw a circle big enough, to put all of the number of God's people in it. You can't draw a circle big enough, to categorize and calculate the number of all the people that Jesus has saved. Now I know that some people might push back on this, and they might say things like, "Wait, wait, wait, just a minute. Book of Revelation is a book of poetry and artistry, it's not to be taken literally. So did John really see a number, of people that no one can count? Is this a tall tale, is he stretching the truth a bit?"
Well, let's go back and see where this language comes from. The language that we see in this passage is rooted and grounded in the promises that God made, throughout the Old Testament. Both the Law and the Prophets tell us, that the number of the saved is beyond calculation. And if the Law and the Prophets can tell us that, then certainly the gospel of Jesus Christ can tell us that in even clearer terms.
In the Law, God promised our father Abraham - in Genesis, in the first book of the Bible, "I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring can be counted also." And in case Abraham didn't get the point, God comes back later and says, "Look toward the heaven and number the stars, if you are able to number them, so shall your offspring be." And just to make sure that Abraham really got the point, God said, "I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring, as the stars of heaven, and as the dust that is on the seashore, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." This is the promise of the mission of God in the world because God loves the world. Not just one person, not just one tribe or one nation, he loves the world.
In the Prophets, God promised our forefathers who were worn out and beat down, and in the grip of a very hard time, and the promise comes to them, in the Book of Hosea.
"The number of the children of Israel
shall be like the sand of the sea,
which cannot be measured or numbered.
And in the place where it was said to them,
'You are not my people’ - (good news!) -
it shall be said to them, children of the living God."
Bad news - you are not my people, you cannot, you have inabilities that you cannot overcome. Good news - children of the living God. God is able and God is willing to bring you into his family.
So the next time you look up into a clear sky at night, remember that every star there represents, a sinner loved by the Father, a sinner ransomed by the Son, a sinner sealed by the Holy Spirit. And remember that one of those stars represents you.
Next time you go to the beach and pick up a handful of sand, remember that every grain of sand represents a person with a face, a name, and a story. A person for whom Jesus laid down his life, a person just like you.
And you are far more valuable to God than a grain of sand. And you are far more valuable to God than a star in the sky. Jesus did not shed His blood to redeem grains of sand and stars in the sky. He laid down his life and shed his blood to redeem you. And people like you, and people not like you, people nearby you, and people far away from you. And he did it all in love.
The Lamb who sits on the throne is the same Lamb who took away the sins of the whole world. Yours, and mine, and theirs. And he sits at the center of the throne and the heart of God as your Advocate with the Father. His presence is perpetual and permanent. He is the one and only Mediator between you and God. He ever lives to intercede and pray for you. He's an eternal witness that he laid down his life for you and took it up again - for you. And why, because God loves you. And God loved you so much he sent Jesus into the world to rescue you. So all of this is built around the love of God.
And because of Jesus and his sacrificial death on the cross, all these saved people from all different backgrounds and experiences, are now standing and gathered in front of Jesus. Not to face judgment, not to face condemnation, but to fill Heaven with worship and praise. Why? For the Lamb at the center of the throne is their Shepherd. They have gathered in his presence to worship and praise him, and also to be comforted. Why? Because the Lamb promises to lead them to springs of living water, and God promises to wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Family and friends, as we come to the Lord's Table today consider this one final word problem, and do the math. There's one Lamb, who comes to take away the sins of the whole world. A great multitude made of people from every tribe language and nation of the whole world are standing before the Lamb. Each and every one of them is dressed in a white robe. How many people did the Lamb save? And the answer is far more than any one of us can count. In fact, no one of us could ever number them. But we are among them, and the Lord knows us by name, and he counts us, as his sons and daughters. And that is good news indeed. Now let's come to the Table and eat and drink with the Lamb of God who takes away the sins, of the world.
Let us pray.
