Revelation 7:9-17 THE GOOD SHEPHERD’S HEAVENLY SHEEP PEN Rev. John E. Warmuth

Revelation 7:9-17 New International Version (NIV)

9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

11 All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying:

“Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!”

13 Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”

14 I answered, “Sir, you know.”

And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 Therefore,

“they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. 16 ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’[a] nor any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’[b] ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

Dear Fellow Sheep in the Good Shepherd’s fold,

A shepherd and his sheep- that’s a picture God uses frequently in the Bible to depict his relationship with his people. The 23rd Psalm which we sang earlier, and Jesus’ reference to himself as the “Good Shepherd” in our gospel lesson, are two of the most familiar sections in the Bible speaking of this relationship between God and us.

Our second Scripture lesson, Revelation 7:9-17, which serves as the text for this sermon, also presents a picture of Jesus the Good Shepherd and his sheep. However, whereas Psalm 23 and John 10 picture that relationship in this world, Revelation pictures it in the next world. Our relationship with Jesus the Good Shepherd in this life is certainly a beautiful relationship. But our relationship with him in the next world will be absolutely heavenly! These verses point that out as they tell us of THE GOOD SHEPHERD’S HEAVENLY SHEEP PEN. We get a glimpse of the heavenly sheep and the heavenly conditions.

I Who are those heavenly sheep in THE GOOD SHEPHERD’S HEAVENLY SHEEP PEN? Three phrases in these verses help us to answer this. First, the sheep are described as “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, tribe, people and language.”

In other words, those sheep could be anyone from anywhere. God is totally impartial when it comes to the color of the skin, the slant of the eyes, type of hair, country of origin, or anything about their physical, racial or ethnic make-up. People in the heavenly sheep pen will be as racially and ethnically diverse as they are on earth. Why?

It’s because “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ Jesus, not counting people’s sins against them,” as we read in 2 Corinthians 5:19. It’s because Jesus is “the atoning sacrifice for all our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world,” as we are told in 1 John 2:2. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross covered the penalty for the sins of all people. Anyone who believes that will finally be in that heavenly sheep pen because “they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” as our text also describes them.

This means that all the sheep in the Good Shepherd’s sheep pen are believers in Jesus Christ. They all have these things in common: They all recognize and confess their sin, they know they were conceived and born in sin and deserve God’s eternal wrath and condemnation; but upon hearing what Jesus had done for them with his suffering and death on the cross and how he rose again from the dead, they came to believe and rejoice in a Savior who had done all that had to be done to save them from their sin and condemnation. Through faith in Jesus they “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Their comfort and joy in life is that in Jesus and Jesus alone they will be in heaven some day. John saw them in heaven.

There is one more description of these heavenly sheep: they are described as “they who have come out of the great tribulation.” This phrase is often grossly misinterpreted. Many churches point to this phrase and say it refers to a great holocaust, an “Armageddon” they call it, a time of the most horrible suffering and devastation to come on the people of the earth, when the forces of good and evil will meet in the Holy Land for the last great battle before Jesus comes to rule on earth for a thousand years in Jerusalem. But just before that battle God will snatch his people out of that great tribulation and keep them safe in heaven until the end.

If you wonder why you’ve never heard that preached from this pulpit, it is because that isn’t going to happen. The great tribulation is simply the truth expressed in Acts 14:22 that “we must go through many hardships (or great tribulation) to enter the kingdom of God.” The great tribulation is what Jesus meant when he said in John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble.” The great tribulation then, is all the troubles, worries, cares, concerns, anxieties, sufferings and persecutions of body and soul that Christians face all life long as a result of their faith in Jesus Christ.

John saw them safe in heaven. We can even say he saw you and me safe in heaven, for we are some of those who are from every nation, tribe, people and language who will be in heaven. We are among those who through faith in Jesus are even now washed of sin, forgiven and are members of God’s family, heirs of eternal life. And though we are still here in the great tribulation of this world, we know we will get out of it. We know we will be among the heavenly sheep in THE GOOD SHEPHERD’S HEAVENLY SHEEP PEN.

II Let’s focus now on the conditions in the pen. Let us first understand that it is impossible to give a fully accurate and clear description of what heaven will be like. The Bible does not answer all our questions about heaven. But what it does tell us makes us anxious to get there and sets our hearts at ease concerning our eternal well-being.

John describes heaven in part as a tent which God will spread over his people. That may not sound appealing to us who may think of our canvass or nylon tents used for camping or “roughing it” on weekends. John was referring to one those massive shelters the nomads put up in the desert. Such tents provided a little paradise in the wilderness- shade from the hot sun, cooling breezes flowing through them, cushions on which to lie and other comforts. The point is that life on earth is like living unsheltered in the desert while eternal life will provide us with eternal comforts.

With all our needs met, there won’t be any sorrows of any kind in heaven, either. For sin and death, which are at the center of all sorrow here will not be part of heaven. They will not exist.

No wonder John saw the sheep in THE GOOD SHEPHERD’S HEAVENLY SHEEP PEN praising and glorifying God. “They cried out in a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’” They acknowledged that they were there because Jesus had saved them from their sin and brought them safely to heaven.

They were with their Lord Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who, as the Lamb of God, had laid down his life for them, but was alive again and now they were living with him. And so will we! We have seen ourselves in that vision. We have a glimpse of our future. And what a wonderful future it is- heavenly sheep living in heavenly conditions in THE GOOD SHEPHERD’S HEAVENLY SHEEP PEN. Amen.