Tape 4 by Malcolm Smith The Six seals

Revelation chapter 6-7

We now come to the results of the Lamb being crowned. And it takes the form of the Seals being broken. That is he breaks one of the seals on the little book, and as he does so you see something, as he breaks another, you see something more and gradually the scroll unrolls. I want us to go through these seals, we are still in the 2^nd Vision – we still have not moved, it is the natural follow-up. The Lamb has been crowned, now what happens, it unfolds history and so we shall follow through. I want you to understand that this is not any particular time in history. If you are not really grasping this, hang in there it will begin to get through to you.

We are not looking for a date – you may have heard the 700 club the other day when one dear sister on camera asked me if the droughts in the mid-west had anything to do with the fifth seal of the book of Revelation – my answer was no of course, but I want you to understand that we are not saying that the first seal began in AD 50 or that we can find the Napoleonic wars in the 7^th seal no, no, here are principles.

I am asking the question of this book now, -what happens when the Lamb reigns? What happens when the King is crowned? And there comes to me a series of visions, and those visions can be seen in history, anywhere, found in every geography wherever the Lamb is proclaimed as the Ruler, the one who was slain and is risen again. As that one is proclaimed as King certain things begin to happen. And it doesn’t matter whether it is AD 95 or 1975, it doesn’t make any difference. Inevitably things begin to take place. That is why this book is a blessing to everyone who reads it, because it is not for this people or that people, it is for all people – wherever I find myself in time or geography, I can find the principles of this book are applicable to where I find myself. What we are going to look out is the inevitable results of what happens with the declaration that the Lamb rules.

First of all , as soon as it was proclaimed that the Lamb rules, a white horse came galloping across the cosmic stage. And he who sat upon the horse, verse 2, says he had a bow and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. You may have one of the various editions of the Bible where the translators and publishers have taken too much into their own heads. A translator should stick to Greek. A publisher should stick to dollars and cents and when they meddle and mess with the Bible they are translating or publishing it makes me very angry. I thought that in the American Standard Version we had finally got a Bible that did not do that. But wouldn’t you know the latest editions start meddling, and if you have that edition, one of the later ones, it says as the book opens, the first seal a 'false Christ'. That is rubbish. If you have a Schofield Bible it is even worse. You will find they stick these little titles to the paragraph and they have the audacity to try and tell you what it means. Just disregard them, 99% of the time they do not fit with the whole truth of Scripture.

The one who rode upon a white horse (there is more than one white horse in the book of Revelation). If this is a code that is ever going to be interpreted then the code must be consistent. If a white horse means something in Chapter 6, and something else in chapter 19, then my head is spinning. The book is written to simple slaves, and in chapter 19 I have no problem at all. It says that One was riding on a right horse and on Him it was written King of Kings, and Lord of Lords so I know who that is, and the very first thing that happens the Lamb has been crowned – what must be done? There must be announced to the whole world – the Gospel must be preached. And the white horse gallops across the Universe proclaiming that the Lamb has risen, the Lamb has been crowned. It is the preaching of the Gospel. Take a careful look at Matthew chapters 18-20 and you will there find that Jesus says, ‘All authority has been given to me in Heaven and upon earth’. This is a statement of the symbol vision which we saw in our last hour. All authority, the Lamb reigns, all authority in Heaven and upon earth, and in Matthew 28 it says, therefore go, make disciples of all nations, teaching them, baptising them, because the Lamb reigns. Because He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, therefore you go and proclaim it. The very first thing that must happen after the Lamb has been seen as the reigning Emperor of the Universe is that its ambassadors must go and so Christ is on a white horse.

The imagery has changed, we are not bothered with that we are dealing with symbols which change rapidly, and the Lamb is now under the symbol of a rider on a white horse but it is as the Lamb the proclamation of the Gospel to the ends of the earth, and it says that the Lamb has a bow, he has been given – Psalm 45 speaks of the king being crowned. In that Psalm it has the quotation of Hebrews 1 which speaks of Jesus Christ as God. And there it says that His arrows stick fast in the heart of his enemies. It is a very vivid picture, and most of us know what it is like by experience, that we were in the path of the rider on the white horse and his arrows stuck fast. We were His enemies, and His arrows came right into us, the arrows of God. And when God belts an arrow into you, it is beautiful afterwards. It is the conviction, or as it says in Acts regarding Saul of Tarsus – ‘it is hard for you to kick against the goads’. The point of an arrow and a goad is much the same imagery. The preaching of the Gospel, the hearing that there is One who reigns, to me is like the jabbing of me by a knife. I do not like it. But it sticks and they stick fast.

And as the rider of the white horse goes by, he lets fly his arrows and it says that to Him was given a crown and the crown that was given to Him at His ascension, he now rides bringing men under His rule.

However, always following that is a rider on a red horse, and to the rider on the red horse was given a sword – the word is a special kind of sword, it is a short kind of sword of sacrifice. Again the Bible that I have the New American Standard which has its additions, says 2^nd Seal – War. Rubbish. You don’t conduct a war with a sword of sacrifice. There is another sword, a great big sword which was used in war. The short one was used specifically for sacrifice. The bloody horse comes galloping after the white one. Every time the Gospel is preached there comes hard on the heels of that Gospel the sacrifice of the Saints. This is nothing to do with war, it has everything to do with persecution. We are sacrificed. In fact further down the 5^th seal you might notice, it says, speaking of martyrs, they have been sacrificed upon an altar and the world sacrifices the saints. This chapter to me of the whole of Revelation is so thrilling because I can speak to you who have receive the Gospel and in receiving the Gospel people who you got along with so well suddenly hate you and you wonder what has happened, and you go to pieces, and say I didn’t expect this. That is exactly how the Churches in Asia were, and God says, here, it’s ok, the Gospel was preached, the Lamb reigns and the bloody horse that comes afterwards is all under the control of the Lamb. It’s all right. It looks as if that bloody horse has got complete control, it hasn’t.

It states there very carefully – it was granted, he was given a grant to take peace from the earth. He did not come galloping in and push the white horse out the way and take over. This one was given permission. It was granted to him. The persecution that follows in his wake is granted by God. I can tell that to you and you can absorb that principle wherever you find yourself, and these tapes will be heard in the jungles of many missionary countries and there will be many missionaries listening to these tapes on top of the Himalayan mountains or in the Philippines, and the persecution there will be very real, and blessed is the one who hears this book and heeds it. Because they will understand that the red horse follows the white house, and don’t be bent out of shape. The Lamb still reigns has got it all under control.

The red horse is followed by a black horse, and again my Bible says ‘Famine’ and again I say ‘Rubbish’ – there is no famine here, there is plenty of food here. Notice it says he broke the third seal and I heard the third living creature say ‘Come’ and I looked and behold a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand, something for weighing in. Then I heard as it were a voice in the centre of the Living Creatures saying ‘a quart of wheat for a denarius’. Now that was a day’s wages, so for one day’s wages one man could feed himself. A quart of wheat would feed you for a day, or you had a choice – 3 quarts of barley for a denarius. For a day’s wages you could buy the coarser stuff. And so you could buy 3 quarts of barley to feed 3 people for a day’s wages if you wanted to go for the coarser. "But do not harm the oil and the wine". The oil and the wine were the luxury items. There’s plenty of wheat, there is plenty of barley, there is plenty of oil and plenty of wine if only you have the money for it. That is not famine. What is it? It is another form of persecution. Remember what I told you last week of what these people were going through. They weren’t all killed and they weren’t all banished, you just lost your job that is all - for the sake of Christianity where the Lamb reigned and the white horse rode through – you may meet the red horse, you may meet the black one – it may be you lose your job. Is that what it means, that Jesus reigns? Yes, that is what it means, the world hates you, you lose your job and suddenly you are in a position where you are scraping a whole day’s wages just to buy enough. It is an economical kind of persecution – the food is there but you can’t touch it. Luxury items are there, but you never get to them. You are knowing the persecution that comes, sometimes you feel it would be better to have died under the red horse than to have eked out an existence without a home, without shelter. There are many places in the world today where becoming a Christian means losing your job straight away. There are many places in the world where you cannot even buy or sell if you are a Christian. I have lived in such a place where I bought $300 of goods and as I passed over the cheque they discovered I was a Christian, the name of the church was on the cheque – they passed back the cheque and told me, we do not sell to the likes of you. And living in that particular country where I was, I knew what this is talking about. It is there, but if you are a Christian you cannot get it. And we are going to hear about not being able to buy or sell because you are a Christian, it is another kind of persecution.

The black horse was followed by a sickly green horse and in this one it states, I looked and behold an ashen horse, and he who sat on it had the name ‘Death’ and Hades was following with him, and authority was given over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword, famine, pestilence, wild beasts. I see there that God is telling me He has control over what we might call natural disaster. A Christian is not isolated. The book of Revelation upsets a lot of teaching going around in America these days. The idea that if you are a Christian you will never hurt or harmed, there is never a famine, there is never a pestilence. Tornados go over your roof, they never hit you if you are a Christian. Health, happiness wealth and riches, it sounds good in the American society but it stinks anywhere else in the world, because that is not true. Do you realise that most of our brothers and sister in this world are suffering brothers and sisters. There is just a little handful of us in America, and we think that America is the whole world, but most of the world of Christians are under the hooves of the red horse or the black horse. And mingled in with all of that is the ashen sickly green horse, its natural disasters, we call them that, and the Lamb that reigns is just telling us that He has control there too. There are certain troubles the world goes through and Christians go through them just the same. But as the Christian goes through them he goes through them with hope, because he knows that this couldn’t happen but for the Lamb who says, ‘unleash the seals’. That the blessings of God, the purposes of God, the unrolling of that little scroll, those purposes are taking place in a fallen world. That is what it is saying. It is taking place in a world of sin and a world of men, and as they unroll there will be the red horse of men, rising up to kill the Christians. It will be with the black horse of social economical pressure and also the world is a fallen place and so you will have all the so called natural disasters going on around . That is a principle. I am not talking about any period in history. It is a principle that unlocks wherever I happen to find myself.

It says then it is followed by a vision of souls under the altar. V.9 He broke the 5^th Seal and I saw under the Altar those who had been slain because of the Word of God. So here are the people who have been slain by the red horse, the people who have been martyred. The imagery there is very vivid, it says the 'souls under the altar'. Remember we were talking about the brazen altars where the animals were killed. There were little gutters on that and as the blood was shed the blood ran down underneath the altar. Remember in Leviticus 17 it says that the life is in the blood, and so the picture here is of a sacrificial altar, the blood has run down, and it says I saw the souls under the altar – it is the spilt blood of martyrs, and notice what they are saying. They are saying with a loud voice, ‘How long oh Lord, Holy and True wilt thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood from those who dwell on the earth?’ I had a lot of problem with that when I first read it. Mean bunch, they have died, and now they are saying, ‘How long oh God before you get that bunch down there. But then I realised there is a far greater context, a God who is not just is no God at all. We say God is good, he could never judge. That is the whole point. If He doesn’t judge, He is no good. The justice of God, the absolute necessity of His being to judge sinners is part of His goodness. If God looked upon sin and smiled, would He be holy, good? If God saw the Nazi regime of Germany and did nothing about it, just ho-hummed it, would that be a good God?

When you think about it, you cannot live sanely without the wrath of God. Sanity demands the wrath of God. For the God who does not punish sin, He is not a good God. And these who cried under the altar, in one sense they are summing up the whole of revelation. This is almost a key verse of the book. How long oh Lord? Is the Lamb really the ruler, really, or is some maniac sinner the last word. Does sin have the last word? Or does the Lamb. And they have died. And one might say, well, I have died, I have gone to Heaven, glory to God it is all over. No no, they died and they still said, ‘How long’? For salvation cannot be understood as absolutely complete until the final judgment takes place, and only when sin has been judged, put away and Satan been eternally bound, only then can we say ‘It is done’. It was accomplished at the cross, but no Christian can rest easy until it is finalised. And there is no doubt about its finality. It shall be. They did not say, would you do it Lord? They just said, Lord, how long?

Remember in Psalm 52, one of the most amazing psalms – David had gone to the tabernacle and Saul had one of his men there called Doeg, and Doeg reported that David was helped by the priests and that maniac Saul commanded the death of every priest – and not one of his soldiers would do it, and so Doeg the one who reported it said, give me the sword, I will do it. And he butchered every person in the village, including the dogs and cats and animals. It was a total wiping out. All except one man Abiathar, and he went and found David. And David looked at Saul from his mountain hideout and he looked at Doeg and he was looking at absolute merciless senseless cruelty. My first reaction if I were David would be to say, God what are you doing, why do you allow that? But David didn’t when he wrote Psalm 52, he said, "Why do you boast in evil oh mighty men?’ He didn’t say God, why? He turned to the man and said ‘Why?’ He is saying, man, do you think you are going to get away with this? David could look at that merciless senseless cruelty with sanity, because he knew the man would not get away with it. He also knew that he was saved from bitterness and resentment against the man. Because if God is going judge I can safely leave the man with God. And in the Psalm he says, ‘Why oh man are you so foolish?’ To think he could do that and get away with it. There is justice in Heaven. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Vengeance belongs to me, and I will repay says the Lord. You should read that Psalm and also Psalm 73 where remember he looked across the street and saw the rich men that had gained all their riches in sin, and he says my feet had almost slipped, I had almost gone, and he said Until I saw the prosperity of the wicked, then I went into the House of God and I saw their latter end. He said I got all my perspective straight, I saw their latter end. Man doesn’t get away with anything – the judgment of God and the Church is being persecuted, crushed, martyrs, and the martyrs can well pray for their persecutors, ‘God forgive them, they know not what they do’. But they also appeal to God that justice be done. And we are going to see as this book unfolds that the way the world treats the Church is the way history is going to unfold for those persecutors. We shall come back to that in great detail as the book unfolds.

Then it finalises with that sixth seal. There is a great earthquake, the sun became as black as sackcloth, made of hair, the whole moon because like blood, the whole stars fell to earth as a fig tree shakes its ripe figs. Remember we are still dealing with massive pictures. Obviously we are not dealing with something literal, obviously that could not be. For many of the stars are a lot bigger than the earth, so how could they fall to earth? What he sees here is a gigantic, horrific picture as he sees the whole universe caving in, the very earth on which men have their rebellion against God, is caving in underneath them. The sky is being rolled together like a scroll, again that couldn’t happen literally. It is a great picture, and the picture shocks and horrifies me, when I see just exactly what it is saying. Look down and see what it is saying, They are crying and screaming and saying ‘Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him Who sits on the Throne and the wrath of the Lamb. Have you ever seen an angry lamb? The two things don’t usually go together. When people think in terms of the wrath of God, people find it very hard to bring the two together. Basically that is what we have been saying. God is only good because justice is part of His goodness. And so the whole picture put together, the persecution in its various forms, the persecuted martyrs are saying, Lord how long before justice is done and your Church is vindicated, and then the final, is the wrath of God – it is the day of Wrath. It is not the final Day of Wrath, that awaits the 7^th seal, this is only the 6^th seal. In fact in this Vision it is not even going to talk about that wrath. There is a wrath comes into the world of man every so often. There is a real sense in which this sixth seal has happened in many places down through history, when the whole world bemoans the fact that their whole world has caved in. It would be almost true to say that the characters of the Watergate affair, they have lived their sixth seal. Their world caved in, their sky was rolled up like a scroll, their stars fell to earth, it was all over. It was not the end – There is a final final judgement. It is spoken of in the Book of Revelation but there is also judgments here there and everywhere bringing worlds to and end. Just before the final, having the 6^th seal it says now the final judgment is come.

Right at the beginning of Chapter 7, it says ‘After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, so this is universal, and they are holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind should blow on the earth. The winds of God are God’s judgment, the tornados of God’s wrath and they are just about to unleash them – it is going to be the 7^th seal, the end the finale.

Then it says, Stop, stop, we are going to protect the Church. The Church in the middle of all this is going to receive the seal of the Living God. There is a holding back of God’s judgment. The Church will be protected. It is the idea that God’s judgment holds back for the sake of the Church. You would be surprised at what judgments do not come because of the presence of the Church. I am impressed with God’s mercy in the holding back of mercy.

Enoch in the Old Testament, he wasn’t such a man of God until he had a little baby and God said to Enoch that when this baby dies the final judgment will come, and that whole sentence, ‘When he dies, the judgment will come’ – that whole sentence is in a word, "Methuselah" and Enoch called that little baby Methuselah and he carried in his name that when he died the judgment of God would come. Methuselah was the walking patience of God. Now if ever a man saw Methuselah he said, When he goes, judgment will come. Methuselah died just immediately before the Flood. Judgment came. Isn’t it interesting that when the patience of God walked in flesh, that man was the man who lived the longest that ever man had lived? The patience of God. The man who was its embodiment lived almost a thousand years. God holds His judgments and the Church walks in the middle of the world. Because of the Church the judgments of God are held back, and the Gospel is preached.

It tells me the number and again, please please, my Bible says, the remnant of Israel, 144000. Now I think by this time we do not have to apologise for what we are doing. Numbers are ideas, not arithmetic. So here is an idea that is summed up in the term of 144,000, and I know that a mere translator, publisher put that in because any Bible student would know that is not a listing Israel. If that is Israel according to the flesh, Israel natural blood Israel, then that is the most messed up list in the Bible. And right to begin with they go absolutely wrong because they got the first two messed up. Whenever there is a list of a natural list of Israel, certain things have to be.

And number one, it has to begin with Reuben, because Reuben was the first-born, and he might have been a slob but he was the first one, and he was as weak as water says the Scripture, and he never did anything, he just assumed the place where he was, but weak as water though he was, he was first-born, and so Reuben should be first. He is not.

Number 2 Ephraim is left out – that is almost like saying, here is a list of States, and you leave out Washington DC because Ephraim was the important next to the tribe of Judah. Judah was the head tribe in that the kings came from Judah, but Ephraim was so important, that many times Israel is called Ephraim, it is a shorthand term for Israel, and they have left out the tribe of Ephraim! They have also left out the Tribe of Dan. You just can’t just write a list and leave out things like that. Obviously we are not dealing with a real listing of Israel. Reuben is in the wrong place, and Ephraim, the most important tribe next to Judah is left out, so is Dan, and Levi is included, and Levi was never included, because he was a tribe very definitely, but he had no inheritance. Levi was the tribe of Priests, so he didn’t have a place there, and also there is tribe there that isn’t – Joseph. There is no tribe of Joseph. Joseph had two sons, his two sons were Ephraim and Manasseh. And he did not have an inheritance, he gave it to his two kids. So you have the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh but there is no such thing as the tribe of Joseph. So one of his sons is left out, Ephraim, and he is put in. It gets very confusing if this is a list of Israel.

No, this is not a list of Israel at all. In fact, you had better go right back to the beginning and say, if the first-born comes first, and it always is so, who is first one of this listing of Israel? The first one mentioned is Judah, and we have just got through seeing the Lion who comes from the tribe of Judah. This listing is of persons and the first, the leader of this list is the Tribe of Judah. This is a company of people, and they are the True Israel and their first-born is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. You know the term Israel is important. What Israel means is 'one who is conquered by God'. And you can call yourself an Israelite but if you are not conquered by God you are no Israelite. So here is a company of those who are conquered by God and their Lord is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

It says they were numbered, and if you took our course on the Pentateuch you will remember in Exodus chapter 30 12-15 it said that whenever Israel had to be numbered, every man had to give atonement money. You could not just be numbered, you had to give atonement money, recognising that I belong to the God of Israel. I am not my own, I belong to God and that atonement money means I pay, I atone with a coin of money, with a coin of silver, and do you remember that Peter in I Peter 3.18 picks up on that idea and he says that you were redeemed not with silver or gold but with the precious blood of the Lamb. So here is the company and every member of this company is a redeemed person, redeemed with the blood of the Lamb because they are numbered. The idea of numbering to an Israelite would be synonymous with being redeemed. Here is a company headed by the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, every one of them redeemed.

What about the number, though? We are back to those 12s again. Do you know what 144000 is 3x4 is 12, 3 x 4 is 12, 12 x 12 is 144, right? So we are back again to the 12 of the Old Testament, 12 of the New Testament, and 12 x 12 gives us 144, but then it is x 10 by x10 by x10.

10 is the perfection of number. You go 1-10, stop at 10 and begin at 1 again. It is for completion. It is complete x 3 is completeness, completeness completeness, the number of God. 144000 gives me an idea, it does not tell me a number, and the idea is of the perfect completed Church of the Old Testament and New Testament, its complete, and you will notice that John said he heard the number, he didn’t see them. That is very important. I have never seen the completed perfect Church, and I don’t think I ever will this side of Heaven, but I hear it.

You are struggling little Christian back there in Thyatira or Sardis or Laodicea or Morristown – as you struggle there, and feel there is nobody there, there is no Christian around, I am the only one. God says, it is alright, I have my perfect complete Church. Not one of them shall be lost, it is alright, things are not what they seem to be. Elijah, remember his prayer, he said, ‘I, only I am left’ and God said, ‘Shut up, I have still 7000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal'. Things aren’t what they appear to be. You feel you are alone, you see know one but you hear it from God, I have got my perfect Church. Everything’s under control. You can’t see it but you can hear. And when you can’t see it, you need to hear it.

Notice then these tribes – why are they there? There is more than one angle to take to that. One is interesting, I have not studied it before but the more I do the more it excites me, a large portion of Genesis is driven to why these tribes were called by their names. I never thought about it very much, but it just intrigues me that two or three chapters of Genesis to describing why each tribe was called by the name it was, and that sounds to me an awful waste of a lot of chapters, because it goes into the details of how the mother felt the day she got pregnant, how she felt when she was having the baby, and why the mother called it that name. Who needs that? Then I began to realise that those names have a tremendous significance. And the events around the birth of those boys were so arranged by God that they got the names they got and you put them together, and suddenly you hear the whole gospel in the names of those boys.

Now I understand why one has to be left out here and one has to be left out there, because they do not fit this picture today.. They had their thing to do back there. But in this picture you only put in what you want to put in, but because it is a picture you can even put in the people who aren’t in. Now you follow down that list, and see what those names mean.

Judah comes first. The word Judah means Praise, so the very first thing I know about this company is Praise, and the praise is centred in the first one, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

The second name is Reuben. The name Reuben means Behold a Son. When I look at this company of people I say, Behold the sons of God, who are noted that they are praising in Judah.

The third one is called Gad. Gad means a Great Company, and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, according to Hebrews, is bringing a great company, many sons to glory. Do you see the code here – if you understand the Old Testament you feel so small, you feel so crushed. God says to you Gad, a great company.

Asher is the 4^th tribe, and Asher means ‘Happy’, ‘Joy filled’. You are a great company, who praise who are filled with unspeakable joy.

The fifth tribe is Nephthalon – it means to wrestle and overcome. Does it need any explanation? One of the key words of Revelation is 'Those who overcome'. The Church are the ultimate Overcomers. The Church is the Company that also overcomes the beast and the dragon and every false thing that is on the face of the earth.

The sixth tribe is Manasseh, that means ‘forgetting’. Joseph gave that name to his son – remember when Joseph was sold down the river to Egypt and held prisoner as a slave, finally after it was all over, he came out, was made prime minister, and he married and his son was Manasseh – finally I have forgotten all my troubles and I have forgotten all the ill that was done to me. Manasseh is placed right in this list. We are the people who have a glorious short memory, it ends at the cross, we have forgotten the misery of our unconverted days, we have forgotten the bondage, it has gone, it is a mist, it is another world. Some of us look back to those days and wonder whether if we were really there, was it really us. We have forgotten, we are a company of Manasseh.

The seventh tribe is Simeon. Simeon means ‘hearing’ this is a company whose ears are open ‘My sheep here my voice’ A company of people who listen and hear. Which is another key verse to the early part of Revelation – 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear‘

The 8^th one is Levi. Levi means ‘joined’. This is a company of people that is joined to the Lord, one Spirit, a mystical company. The expression of the Lamb of God of earth, who are joined to Him in Spirit.

The 9^th tribe mentioned is Issachar. Issachar means ‘A price was paid’. It is a company which has been redeemed with a price. Every member of this clan is sealed with the blood of Jesus.

The 10^th tribe is Zebulon which means a dwelling-place. This Company is the dwelling place of God. Ephesians 2.20 says that we have become the habitation of God through the Spirit.

The 11^th tribe mentioned is Joseph. Joseph means ‘Add, fruitful’ you add to and become richer and richer and richer and become fruitful. And so this company of people who have added to them the Spirit of God and so have become fruitful, and produced the fruits of the Spirit. Incidentally when Joseph was given his blessing, his father played on his name, and said he would become so fruitful that the boughs or branches of his tree would become so fruitful they would hang over his neighbour’s wall. And that was speaking of the fact that Israel would one day not be the chosen people of God - it would go over the wall into gentile land, and even the gentiles would be included in the fruitfulness of God. And so Joseph is the one that reminds us that not only are we the expressers of the fruits of the Spirit, but also that we gentiles are included into this Israel. We are the ones where God went over the wall, and then number 12, Benjamin.

The name Benjamin is very important – he was the son of Rachel. Rachel was the dearest to the heart of Jacob and he wanted her to have children, and she had Joseph and then she had no more until she had Benjamin – giving birth to Benjamin she died, and as she was dying, she took the little child, and because of the horror and agony of her death, she named him "Banoni" and Banoni means ‘Son of my deep sorrow’. The Father would have none of it, and he changed the name of Banoni to Benjamin which means ‘Son of my right hand’. I don’t think there is any more perfect picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Banoni-Benjamin. He is the Son of my sorrow, and after the sorrow was over he arose again and became the son of his Father’s right hand. And the proof that He is seated at the right hand of the Father, the proof that Jesus is the ultimate Benjamin according to Acts 2.33, is that He has poured forth the Holy Spirit which you now see and hear. Peter says I can prove that He is the Son of the Father’s right hand. He has been exalted. He sits now upon the throne and to prove it He has poured out this that you now see and hear.

And so this great company could be looked at from all these twelve difference angles, and you could say, now that is the Company. It is the Israel of God alright, it is the Israel that Israel was always meant to be. It is the true company of those who are conquered by God. Lorded by the Lamb of the Tribe of Judah and it is the perfect, the most complete, I have never seen it – it began with Abel and who knows when it will end but God sees it as one completed company, so it is not 144000 – it is the complete number of the Church of God. 144000 is but an idea that lets me know that. The names of the tribes only expound to me the nature of that company.

Now it says that each one of them was sealed – we are going to get to sealing later on. At this point it just says they were sealed, with the seal of the Living God. A seal in the Bible speaks of ownership. If you were a rich man and you wanted to buy something you would point at it and your slave would come along and put your seal on it. That meant – it was like putting a sign on it ‘sold’ – it was sealed. It is owned by someone else. Many slaves had the name of their owner stamped on to their forehead, burned into them. They were sealed, they were owned. The idea of being sealed also held with it security. If someone owned you, they looked after you. You are an owned people, you are secure and you are protected. Because if you belong to someone they are going to make sure that nobody else gets to you, so security and protection is in the idea. The idea of a seal also is a signature, behind which was a person’s character. I think I have told many of you before that a credit card in the use was your signet ring. Your signature comes from a signet ring – you seal, you use it as your signature, you leave the imprint, it was your signature – behind that signature is the whole character, and so it says they were sealed with the seal of God. And so God says, ‘you are mine’. When God says ‘you are mine’ He’s going to look after you, He’s going to protect you – no-one can touch you, and behind the seal of God is the whole character of God.

And what is that seal? Again another part of the Bible tells us, Ephesians 1.13 says you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of God. So the Holy Spirit has been sealed to your spirit. That Spirit witnesses to your spirit that you are born of God. That Spirit is the living guarantee within you that God owns you and God will take care of His property. As you walk in a world of persecution and economic struggle because of faith, not because of government inflation but because of faith you walk maybe in a world of very drastic straights. You are also in a world of natural disasters, and sometimes you feel is there any justice left at all. And you feel like you are one under the altar crying to God – you look around and you see judgement and you understand it but you walk in the middle of it unscathed, untouched, even if the hurt touches you, it cannot touch you, because you know who rules, you are one of that perfect company, the true Israel of God, sealed with the seal of God.

He then saw an innumerable multitude, he saw that multitude, at the end of Chapter 7, we do not have time to go into that tonight, but we shall come across it again, for all these visions run parallel, so when we come to the next vision we start at the beginning again and work through, and we find that these things keep cropping up and so although we are not dealing with that innumerable multitude tonight, we shall get to it in another vision and refer back to this. Mull over this very deeply and begin to apply it to where you find yourself. In the chapters which we have discussed tonight there is the key which will unlock your situation where you are. That is why blessed is he who reads and hears the words of this prophecy. Amen.

The original set of 12 tapes can be obtained from Malcolm Smith's web site.
They are suitable for group study.

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