God and his people

The book of Revelation can be controversial. There are many views as to what it is talking about, and Christians often fall out over how to apply it. For that reason you don’t see many devotional articles coming from this book apart from the first three chapters and last two chapters. No matter what view you take on it, there is one major theme that shines through: God cares about his people. Because he cares about them he takes care of them.

Chapter 6 ended with a question: “who is able to stand” against the wrath of the One on the throne and the Lamb? The obvious answer is: “No one!” But we see in chapter 7 that those who are sealed are able to stand – not on their own but because they are with God. No one without God was able to stand.

John wrote about God’s people in chapter 7 – not the Israelites but all of God’s people – we can see this from the numbers used (12,000) and that the tribes listed are not the list of the tribes of Israel from the Old Testament. In the word picture John painted God was going to allow angels to damage the earth, but there was an exception: those who had God’s seal on them. They would be protected. These are God’s people.

The result of all of this was great celebration, both by God’s people and those surrounding God’s heavenly throne.

“After these things I looked, and here was an enormous crowd that no one could count, made up of persons from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb dressed in long white robes, and with palm branches in their hands. They were shouting out in a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ And all the angels stood there in a circle around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they threw themselves down with their faces to the ground before the throne and worshipped God, saying, ‘Amen! Praise and glory, and wisdom and thanksgiving, and honour and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!’” (Revelation 7:9-12 NET)

The scene is very much one of joyous celebration. The people were celebrating that God saves – salvation belongs to the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb! The Lamb, in case you aren’t familiar with Revelation, is Jesus himself. The only source of salvation is the Father and the Son.

This theme was taken up by those around God’s throne: the angels, the elders, and the four living creatures. They echoed the same sentiment: God should receive all praise, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honour, power and strength – these are his for ever and ever. 

Notice two things about this praise. First, we see that the word ‘Amen’ comes before and after what they said about God. We commonly use ‘Amen’ at the end of the our prayers but this also has it at the beginning. What exactly does ‘amen’ mean? I’ve often heard it said that it means ‘so be it’ – and it does, but there is possibly more. I’ve read that a better definition would be ‘this is true!’ That fits what is being said here and doubly so, as we find it twice.

We see that there are seven things that belong to God. Seven is one of those numbers that is not only frequently found in Revelation but throughout scripture. Seven indicates perfection. The praise being given to God is perfect praise because God is perfect.

What about us? Do we give God the praise and glory that he deserves? After all, everything we have including our life and breath are ours because of him. Do we thank God for the salvation that we have? Do we thank God for sending Jesus so that we can have salvation? Do we realise the truth of what God has done for us?

We should join the heavenly assembly with our ‘Amen!’