The identification of the 144,000 in our previous study caused the identity of the great multitude (Rev. 7:9) to become almost as mooted a question.
So the responsibility assumed in that series to identify the former, the firstfruits, imposes a commensurate responsibility to identify the latter — THE SECOND FRUITS — THE GREAT MULTITUDE.
Rev. 7:9 —“After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.”
Leading to the identification of this great multitude, Inspiration has given several clues, one of which is a classification of the redeemed of all ages, from the martyrdom of Abel to the close of probation.
The Four Classes Of The Redeemed:
Group 1:
“Nearest the throne are those who were once zealous in the cause of Satan, but who, plucked as brands from the burning, have followed their Saviour with deep intense devotion.”
Group 2:
“Next are those who perfected Christian characters in the midst of falsehood and infidelity, those who honored the law of God when the Christian world declared it void.”
Group 3:
“And the millions, of all ages, who were martyred for their faith.”
Group 4:
“And beyond is the ‘great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, … before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands,’” — The Great Controversy, p. 665.
Here,
A momentous question presses for answer:
Since we are plainly shown that the “great multitude” (group 4) are a company separate from the plucked brands (group 1), from the overcomers of falsehood and infidelity (group 2), and from the martyrs of all time (group 3), how can the “great multitude” possibly be composed of the saints of all ages, of all the redeemed? — Very obviously, they cannot.
Consequently, if they are not group 1, 2, or 3, then who can they be but the living saints?
And since they are not the 144,000, the firstfruits of the living, they must, then, be second fruits.
Indeed, there must be second fruits, for the term “first-fruits” calls for second fruits just as much as the term “first resurrection” (Rev. 20:6) calls for a second resurrection, and as much as the term “second death” (Rev. 20:14) calls for a first death.
Nevertheless, still
Another baffling question requires an answer:
If Christ’s query, “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth” (Luke 18:8), also His statement, “Fear not, little flock” (Luke 12:32), mean that few are to be saved and found living when He comes for His own, then
How can there be an innumerable multitude?
Though at first glance the question propounds a paradox, it is quickly resolved, and the idea that only a few living saints are to meet Him in “the air” is effectively dissipated when account is taken of the facts that:
- “The harvest truly is plenteous” (Matt. 9:37), that
- The “harvest time,” the time to garner in the plenteous harvest, is “the end of the world” (Matt. 13:39), and that
- The very term “harvest” itself denotes a larger gathering than at any previous “season.”
7. The Harvest - No matter how great and how effective a revival and reformation even God Himself may launch in His church, the Scriptures make it plain that both the sinners and the saints will be in the church until the harvest. No one need brag that the members of his church are… Furthermore, the query —
“Shall He find faith on the earth?”
- is not questioning the number of saints at this particular coming,
- but rather faith itself regardless of number.
And if at His appearing in the clouds to take home the faithful, He finds no faith in the earth, then what about His waiting church, which is to be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Eph. 5:27), be it small or great?
“Clad in the armor of Christ’s righteousness, the church is to enter upon her final conflict. ‘Fair as the moon clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners,’ she is to go forth into all the world, conquering and to conquer.” — “Prophets and Kings,” p. 725. (Song of Sol. 6:10.)
Obviously, His coming recorded in Luke 18:8 cannot be the one of 1 Thessalonians 4:17, His coming “in the clouds,” but it could be the one of Malachi 3:2, 3, and Matthew 13:30, 47–48, leading to Matthew 25:31-33 – His coming to His temple is to separate the sinners from the saints, at the commencement of which Inspiration asks,
“Who may abide the day of His coming?”
8. The Judgment Of The Living - What is the need of a judgment, and why should we be judged after we are saved? That the Bible teaches of a coming judgment no one can deny. We therefore need only to give the reason for it. The true people of God, we are told, are commingled with… And now, in the prophet’s own words, comes the overall evidence of the ingathering of a great multitude of living saints
During the “Harvest Time”:
Isa 66:20 —“And they [
- the 144,000, the “servants” of God (Rev. 7:3)
- who escape the slaying or abide the day (Isa. 66:16)
- in the separation of the tares from the wheat (Matt. 13:30, 41),
- the harvest of the firstfruits (Rev. 14:4),
] shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules and upon swift beasts, to My holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord.”
Dan. 2:35 —“Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors, and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.”
9. The Premillennial Kingdom - The Jews had built up an erroneous conception of what the Kingdom was to be, and how and when it was to come, and so when the Lord exposed their misconceptions, they became indignant. They were very angry, not because the Kingdom which the Saviour disclosed was not much more… Isa 2:2 — “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.”
Isa 2:3 —“And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.”
Keeping these correlative forecasts steadily in view, none but the blind can fail to see that the idea of only a few saved is true only of the number saved during any pre-harvest message-bearing period; not, though of the number saved during the “harvest” time itself.
The great multitude, the second fruits of living saints, moreover, are also found projected in
Certain demonstration in Type:
- “Moses upon the mount of transfiguration was a witness to Christ’s victory over sin and death. He represented those who shall come forth from the grave at the resurrection of the just.” — Desire of Ages, p. 421.
- “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” Matt. 27:52, 53. (See Early Writings, p. 184, and Desire of Ages, p. 786.)
- “Elijah, who had been translated to heaven without seeing death, represented those who will be living upon the earth at Christ’s second coming, and who will be ‘changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump….’” — The Desire of Ages, p. 421.
- “As Enoch was translated to heaven before the destruction of the world by water, so the living righteous will be translated from the earth before its destruction by fire.” — Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 89.
In these passages we are shown four types, calling for,
- Two companies of resurrected saints, and for
- Two companies of translated saints.
Since there are two types for the living, and as Enoch himself was not a descendant of Jacob, he cannot logically represent Jacob’s descendants, the 144,000. In fact, the name Jacob, or the title “Israelite,” did not even come into existence until centuries after Enoch was translated.
Accordingly,
- Elijah, an Israelite himself, logically typifies the 144,000, and
- Enoch logically typifies the great multitude, who are from “all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues” (Rev. 7:9), because from his generation have descended all nations.
At their Master’s final call, then, appear in beautiful symmetry the trophies of the gospel — two hosts of resurrected with their types, and two hosts of translated with their types.
O, what an ineffably wondrous and awesome sight — the glorious hosts of the redeemed sweeping through the portals of glory and marching down the gold-paved street of Paradise, to the strains of celestial anthems which mortal ear has never heard —
PARADE OF PARADES! BEHOLD IT PASS:
- First, The millions of escorting angels who ministered to the redeemed in all ages.
- Second, Moses, the first inspired penman, general and leader peerless among men, clothed in white and crowned with a glittering golden crown, leading the van of the resurrected, themselves wearing white robes and golden crowns.
- Third, Abel, first among martyrs, leading the martyred host of the ages, all clad in glorious white robes with borders of red.
- Fourth, Enoch, his head encircled with a dazzling white wreath surmounted with a lovely crown brighter than the sun, and upon his arm a glorious palm; and following him a great multitude, all clothed in pure white robes, with palms in their hands and golden crowns on their heads.
- Fifth, Elijah the faithful, arrayed in a glorious white mantle from his shoulders to his feet, leading the 144,000, a royal priesthood, all like himself, attired in glorious white mantles.
- Sixth, The Adams, the “sons of God,” from the worlds of God’s universe, with father Adam in the van.
- Seventh, Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of Lords, the Majesty of all creation, the first and the last, and with Him ten thousand times ten thousand and thousand thousands of angels.
Throughout the infinite expanse of eternity never before has heaven beheld and never again will it behold the like–a procession supernal!
Brother, Sister, it is ours to choose either the habiliments of the saved or the cerements of the lost; either to walk with the ransomed in white or lie down with the damned in black.
If it be the latter — God forbid that it should be — then the dreadful price must be, not the first death alone, but also the second death, from which there is no release.
Yes, which will it be — shrieking lamentations in the lake of unquenchable fire, or rapturous songs at the fount of unquenchable joy?
