Revelation; 144,000

Originally posted by warpcrafter
This is why I believe that some sort of real pandemic will be let loose on the world. TPTB like to tailor their actions to the verses of Revelations, and this "Seal" will be an immunization that is given to the elites and their favored servants so that they will be left after the disease has swept the Earth.

I'm not convinced that TPTB pay much attention to the verses of Revelation. In any case. the seal in this narrative does not seem to offer physical protection.

Hi again .I came across a short vid. that I wanted to share as it tells a story of how we as youth can be confused .enjoy and peace
www.cbn.com.../vod/AL32v1_WS

reply to post by the2ofusr1

Thank you for supplying us with that link.
I've had a quick glance at it- but I have a suspicion that it takes us to the index of the site rather than the specific video you intended.
The numbers after the = sign in the link are not coloured blue, and I think they may not be taking effect.
It does look like an interesting site, though.

Sorry I am no thit much of a IT guy ..I will try this.......... Kamal Saleem: Muslim Drawn to the Risen Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ » I am not sure if you are famillar with eric jon phelps but he has a lot of good stuf posted .www.vaticanassassins.org... peace

[edit on 18-8-2010 by the2ofusr1]

reply to post by the2ofusr1

Thank you
Yes, that link works.
I must spend more time there later.

reply to post by aorAki


God is always fair. Remember when Peter denied Christ three times
before the cock crowed? Yes, this is the same Peter that the
'catholic' church claims is their rock and founder.

Okay, so Peter was cowardly, and ran away, and denied The Lord
Three times. Keep reading. When Jesus re-appeared after
His Resurrection, He asked Peter Three times: Do you love me?
Each time Peter said, Yes, Lord. The Lord replied: Feed my sheep.

The Lord took away the sting and shame of Peter's cowardice. Each time
He asked Peter if he loved Him, Jesus was removing the sin and guilt
from Peter's denial.

One hint that you might take to heart as you read Matthew, Mark
and Luke. In each of these gospels, they all recount the incident
of (Simeon) Peter's WIFE'S MOTHER (his mother-in-law)
laying sick of a fever; and Jesus healed her, upon which she got up
and made them dinner. Peter was married.

On another, but related topic: there are two groups of "Jews".
Kaballah and Torah. The true Torah Jews are those who believe
in the first five books of our Bible; they call it The Torah (Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). There is actually a
web-site called True Torah Jews that may be able to shed some light
for you on the differentiation. To the best of my knowledge, the Kaballah's
are those who have built upon centuries of writings of 'rabbi's.

reply to post by DISRAELI

I am now adding a link to my more recent thread on the first chapter of Revelation, which sets the tone for the whole book;
Fear Not

I read once that the GFL were going to save 144,000 people on their ships.

I won't be one of them. I'm staying here.

reply to post by NuclearPaul

Don't worry.
This has nothing to do with the GFL.

I'm now attaching a link to the more recent thread relating to ch3, which centres upon the Creator God as the driving force of everything that happens in Revelation;

In the presence of God

God seals the 144,000 to go to heaven. And the benefit of bieng sealed by god,is that you are not bieng sealed by the anti christ. either way,your bieng sealed.

I just read the beginning of the thread, but I think I've always felt this was more in line with how it all really works. The phrase 'sealed your fate' is literal in this case it seems. At some point we all end up choosing the direction of our life. Howerver, we can change it at any time up until the point it ends. Wherever we are when this "lesson" is over is how we'll be graded/judged. I don't think it will mean eternal punishment, but there will be a period of reviewing and learning where we went wrong personally. And I believe it may be unpleasant for some depending on what they need to relearn.

I believe receiving the spirit means we have made efforts to become enlightened and learn how to live a good life. I think many will be surprised to be part of Jesus' group because they don't consider themselves religious, but went about living a life more in line with spirituality than many who go to church everyday.

I feel it all works out in the end and at some point we all go home. But to go home, we must know how to conduct ourselves accordingly. Paradise can't be paradise unless everyone there is on the same page.

- Dredge

Here is a "tid-bit" about the number 144,000:

It's a scientific fact that: "The harmonic value for the speed of light happens to be 144.000 arcs per grid second."

There are more correlations which prove scientifically, that "God's Fingerprint," known as the "Golden Ratio," is all over the Universe, just look!

It is said that: "Each cycle of the DNA molecule measures 34 angstoms long by 21 angstroms wide. 34 and 21 are fibonacci numbers, as noted above. 34/21 is 1.619, approximating phi."

I am not sure how anyone can dispute the logical inference presented that human beings were created first, then environmental, sentient, and social pressures, allow us to "evolve;" When the need to "change" is paramount to survival, DNA is written in such a way, that "evolution" is possible? Would this not be a great benefit to any life-form given by any such "Creator?" I would have to agree that any "Creator" which endowed "creations" to be some-what self-replicating and "geared" to change when certain "pressures" were necessary for survival of a species?

It constantly amazes me how we are able to exclaim "we have figured it out," when they have only seen a tiny corner of the "true reality." There is so much more than we realize and to have and keep an open-mind is necessary for continued epiphanies and innovation, as a whole.

Many Blessings,

reply to post by trekwebmaster

Thank you for that contribution.
Those details have given us a lot to think about.

reply to post by trekwebmaster
cool post ...I recently watch a good vid about our dna and what it can do ..we are all so close to being a cabbage it boggles the mind ..peace

amazingdiscoveries.tv...

reply to post by the2ofusr1


I agree, we "have" the potential to be way-more than what we are at present. DNA suggests its composition to be highly adaptive and inference is given by "clues" that it is indeed scalable. Google DNA Repair Frequencies, the Solfeggio Tones, and another thing I first noticed of DNA is that there exists "telomeres" which are "end-caps" on chromosomes to stop them dividing when the end is reached, the "telomere" or end-cap, the cell dies.

Isn't the inference here meant to be that in a "default state" humanity had no such "telomere" or "end-cap?" This would support the assumption that humanity was "designed" to be "immortal." But since human beings die, the telomeres must have been placed there on purpose. A mystery indeed!

In following the above inference, would it be reasonable that telomeres were added when mankind "fell from grace?" Perhaps when humanity was "escorted" out of the Garden of Eden, our DNA was changed and this equates with "Original Sin?" Further, if it can be "edited-out" then surely, it can be "edited-in," as easily? Perhaps this will occur automatically once some "milestone" or "understandings" is reached? I am sure that since humanity doesn't understand the entire secret of DNA, that the "editing-out" wasn't performed by human beings. This is highly suggestive that a "Higher Being" or "G_d" performed this procedure for a reason? And that Humanity, as it is, hasn't really progressed enough or shown that it can be trusted to "act accordingly," if this "missing piece" of DNA is added back in? Time will tell and one can hope that we all raise our awareness and pray that "certain Truth" will be revealed to fulfill this next step?

Originally posted by Dredge
I think many will be surprised to be part of Jesus' group because they don't consider themselves religious, but went about living a life more in line with spirituality than many who go to church everyday.

In fact I agree with this point.
I think the parable of the sheep and the goats carries much the same message- "When did we, Lord...?"

The question of "judgement" and life after death comes at the end of Revelation, and I'm going to be tackling those chapters over the next three weeks.

reply to post by miracleretiree

As you say, the sealing by God is the alternative to being marked by the Beast. One or the other.
But I don't take the 144,000 as a literal number, of course.

Originally posted by DISRAELI
I want to offer some thoughts on Revelation ch7 vv1-8 which reports the "sealing" of the 144,000 servants of God.

I'm going to be asking the question; how does this benefit the people who receive it?

When?

This act of sealing will be taking place in a time of "truce", which God allows and sets aside for the purpose.
The truce will be needed bcause the "Four Horsemen" sent by God have been running wild all through ch6, wreaking havoc on human life.

At the beginning of this chapter, the time of havoc is interrupted. We see four angels stopping the "four winds of the earth", holding them back from "blowing against" the natural world. Perhaps these are the same "four winds from the four quarters of heaven" that God once threatened to send against Elam (Jeremiah ch49 v36).

Then a fifth angel steps forward, whose real assignment is to tell us what's happening. He instructs the other angels, loudly, not to hurt the earth or the sea or the trees (in fact they're already acting on that instruction, just by being there).
Then he explains the reason.
Time must be allowed for the servants of God to be "sealed".

And so the time of truce begins.
It seems to come to an end in ch8 v6, because that's the moment when the angels with trumpets go into action, and the business of hurting the earth and the sea and the trees can begin in earnest.
We get more information about the "time of truce" from the statement in ch8 v1;
"There was silence in heaven for half an hour".
I was discussing this in the attached thread;
Silence in Heaven

My explanation, briefly, was that the phrase "silence in heaven" was an oblique way of indicating that there were no expressions of God's wrath upon the earth- this same time of "truce", in other words.
The "silence in heaven" lasts for "half-an-hour".
And the reign of the Beast, we learn from ch17 v12, lasts for "one hour".
So the "silence in heaven" can be identified as the first portion of the period during which the Beast is reigning.
It would seem, then, that the time available for the "sealing" operation is the entire first half of the reign of the Beast, however long that period might be.

Who?

Next, we must consider the "servants of God" themselves.

One, rather oblique, way of learning more about them is to look at the numbers being quoted.
Because the symbolic meaning of number is always important in Revelation.

"10" has been described as the number of completeness or perfection. I think of it as pointing us towards "the full extent of the world".
"1000" is the cubed version of "10"; 10 is taken three times and multiplied out, and that's the result. I think of it as God's version of "10", the full extent of God's world.
And all the way through the Bible, "12" is the number which points us towards "God's people".

Now each tribe on this list is numbered as "12" multiplied by "1000".
Then the multiplication by "12" is repeated, because there are twelve tribes on the list.
Which brings us the grand total of 144,000.
On that basis, the number 144,000 carries the symbolic meaning of;
"The fullness of God's people occupying the fullness of God's world."

The other source of information about them is the list of names.
This list is really a combination of two different lists from the Old Testament.
There's the list of "sons of Jacob", which includes Levi and Joseph.
Then there's the classic list of the "twelve tribes of Israel".
The difference between them is that the names of Levi and Joseph were left out of the second list, because Levi were set aside as a community of priests, and the "house of Joseph" was divided into the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.

If we now compare the list of tribes in this chapter with the classic list, we can see that the names have changed again.
On the one hand, the names of Dan and Ephraim have disppeared.
It is not likely to be a coincidence that these were the two tribes which hosted the two golden calves established by Jeroboam, after he broke away from the authority of Jerusalem. Not the kind of names that you can associate with loyalty.

On the other hand, the names of Levi and Joseph have been restored.
These have much better asociations.
It was the Levite Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, who showed his loyalty in the affair at Shiittim, which was one of the key moments in the fight against idolatry. For that reason, the Lord said to Moses about him;
"Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace; and it shall be to him and his descendants after him the covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel"- Numbers ch25 vv12-13.
While Joseph is renowned for a different kind of fidelity, refusing the advances of Potiphar's wife.

So the net result is that "faithful" names have replaced "unfaithful" names.
The implication is that this list is pointing us towards a "God's people" which has been cleansed of unfaithfulness.

If the point of the names and the way they change is to give this meaning to the complete list, there's no need for us to take them individually and apply them to literal tribes or to literal groups of any kind. The "twelve tribe" symbolism belongs to God's people, and, for New Testament purposes, God's people are those who have put their trust in Christ.

The essential point is that this listing covers the full number of the loyal servants of God. We can borrow the words of the Anglican liturgy and describe them as
"The blessed company of all faithful people".

What?

We must consider what is meant by the act of sealing.

This is not the first appearance of "sealing" in the New Testament.
We find it explained in Ephesians as the privilege of believers in general.
"In [Christ] you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of salvation, and have believed in him, weresealed with the promised Holy spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance".- Ephesians ch1 vv13-14
And there's a similar combination of ideas when paul writes to the Corinthians;
"But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has commissioned us; he has put his seal upon us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee."- 2 Corinthians ch1 vv21-22.

God would not need to have two different ways of "sealing" his people and marking them as his own. So it seems reasonable to assume that the sealing in this chapter is that same sealing "with the Holy Sprit".
There's no suggestion that all the servants are sealed in a single moment.
It would be part of the continuing process of people hearing the gospel of forgiveness and putting their trust in Christ, receiving the promise of an "inheritance" and receiving the Spirit as a kind of tangible pledge of that inheritance.

Why?

We can learn the purpose of the sealing from the parallel in one of Ezekiel's visions. The Lord is threatening to send his wrath against Jerusalem, on account of its various idolatries. But he gives instructions, before this happens, to put a mark on the foreheads of all those who "sigh and groan over all the abominations"; that is, their loyalty to God makes them grieve over the unfaithfulness of the rest of the city. The purpose of the mark is to protect them from the action of wrath. (Ezekiel ch9 vv4-6)

So the purpose of sealing the servants of God must be to protect them
Does this mean physical protection?
Yes, we're told in a later chapter that the "locusts" won't be able to touch them.
But I believe the power of the "locusts" to be spiritual rather than physical, so this protection would be part of a spiritual protection.
The key point is surely the opposition between the "sealing" in this chapter and the "Mark of the Beast", as one of the great "opposing pairs" of Revelation.
The servants will be faced with the challenge of the Mark, and the possibility of martydom if they refuse it.
It would make sense, then, that the sealing should be part of their protection against temptation.

THis would be one application of the remarks made by John Calvin on that passage in Ephesians (and you won't often see me quoting Calvin);
"God on his part is pleased to empower [the gospel] by his Holy Spirit, and to print it so certainly in our hearts that we may be steadfast and that the same steadfastness may not be beaten down by all the devil can ever do or devise to overthrow our faith"- Calvin, "Sermons on Ephesians" (Sermon 5).

Thus, in brief, the function of the sealing would be to bring into existence a body of believers who will not take the Mark of the Beast.








[edit on 15-8-2010 by DISRAELI]

I hate to break it to ya, but Revelations is all kite crypt. Mr. John was in prison at the time he wrote all that stuff. Everything is symbolic, and the terms and phrases he used most probably corresponded to things and people that were totally opposite of what the literal meanings were at the time. I read revelations and I read a planned retake of Israel. Remember the Romans had just smashed Israel and exiled the Jews a few years prier to John writing all these things. When things are stated such as "12,000 from each tribe." I read maybe it could mean, "we need at least 12,000 young men from each of the now scattered tribes to have enough military strength so we will have a fighting chance to take back our homeland." I could be wrong on the interpretation, but that's crypt coded in some pretty heavy metaphorical lingo. I know that much. I'll give you a modern reference for what I am talking about.

The FBI when they were busting the Sicilian mob had to develop language books to decode the crypt they were using to communicate among one another in carrying out their criminal enterprise activities, a private cultural lingo. Their private lingo was all carried over from the old country, varying from town to town, family grouping to family grouping within those towns, and dates back thousands of years. The same language system John used was the same type of system that evolved into what the modern mafia lingo became. The Greeks, Jews, all of the people around the Med had their own cultural crypt languages they used in public among their people like a second language. Because the "walls had ears" aka "eavesdroppers." A modern example, we'll use the organized crime lingo used in the last century. Example: "I went to the grocery store today to pick up a few bananas. The really ugly red haired Irish lady who usually runs check stand 5 and is always a B-." Translation "You need to shakedown one of our bookies at the track today who is holding out on some tribute he owes us. It's "Four Leaf" who you can usually find standing in line at cage #5 before the races start. He has red hair, you can't miss him in a crowd. Beat him like a dog if he does not have it on him." That's what you're dealing with in translating Revelations. Same thing with Nostradamus.

reply to post by LilDudeissocool

Perhaps you need to read the rest of the threads in this series (there's going to be an Index thread when I get to the end of them).
I reckon I'm doing a fairly good job at managing my own decoding.