The One
Hundred and Forty-Four Thousand
Revelation
Seven and Fourteen
The ground of this most vital subject has
been extensively covered in "The Shepherd's Rod," Vol. 1.
Therefore, we intend to bring out only that phase which does not appear
in the first volume. The following
questions will be answered in this chapter: At the time the Lord commands the
angel to seal them (the 144,000) are they found by that message in the world or
in the church? At what time are they
sealed? Why are they "virgins"? Why is there "no guile" in their
mouth? Are they men only or of both
sexes? Why are they called
"servants of God"? Why are
they
We quote from the writings of the
"Spirit of Prophecy": "This was the time of Jacob's
trouble. Then all the saints cried out
with anguish of spirit, and were delivered by the voice of God. The one
hundred and forty-four thousand triumphed.
Their faces were lighted up with the glory of God." -- "Life
Sketches," page 117. Note that the
144,000 in number, were present in "the time of
Jacob's trouble." According to the
following quotation, that time of trouble commences immediately after the close
of probation: "When Christ shall cease His work as mediator in man's
behalf, then this time of trouble will begin." -- "Patriarchs and
Prophets," page 201. That time of
trouble is before any of the sleeping saints are resurrected, therefore the
144,000 are not resurrected, but are living saints who have never tasted death
and are to be translated at the second coming of Christ.
The 144,000 Sealed While In the Church
To make this clear we must comment on the
typical day of atonement. That notable day in the ceremonial system was
a day of cleansing, judgment, and covering.
The command was given that in the seventh month and on the tenth day of
the month (day of atonement) every Israelite was to
afflict his soul, confess his sin, and bring a sacrifice. He who failed to respond to the divine call
was cut off (perished) from among God's people.
Therefore, it was a day of judgment and
purification of the camp of
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When the judgment opened in 1844, as
previously explained, the investigation began with the dead, and when that part
of the work is finished, then commences the judgment of the living. While the investigation for the congregation
of the dead is in progress, there can be no separation among the congregation
of the living. But when our High Priest
shall begin the atonement for the living, there must be a message of present
truth -- sounding of the trumpet -- urging every one to lay hold on the Lamb of
God (Christ) by which only, can he in figure, come to the sanctuary, confess
his sin and secure his life. Unless the
close of the judgment for the dead and the commencement for the living be made known to us, we would have no present truth while
the judgment for the living is in session.
Neither would such judgment be legal or just. He who fails to respond to the heavenly
summons, will be left without the seal or covering of God, and therefore must
be cut off from among His people, as prefigured by the services in the typical
day of atonement.
Says the apostle: "For the time is come
that judgment must begin at the house of God." (1 Peter 4:17.) The fact that to the "Seventh-day
Adventist" church alone has come just such a message as the one mentioned,
presented to them in "The Shepherd's Rod," Vol. 1, is an additional
proof that this particular church is the house of God. This time of judgment is also called the
"time of harvest." "Let
both grow together until the harvest," said Christ, "and in the time
of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and
bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn."
(Matt. 13:30.) The words of our Master
are in perfect harmony with the typical day of atonement,
foretelling that it is a day of separating the tares from the wheat, or cutting
off of the unrepentant sinners from among God's people (purification of the
church). Therefore, the harvest
commences with the closing work for the church.
Said Christ: "Let both grow together until the harvest." In Revelation 14:4,
speaking of the 144,000 we read, "They are the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb." Therefore, it is evident that in the
purification or separation of the tares from the wheat in the
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real, sinful character.
They will always be on the side of faithful and plain dealing with sins
which easily beset the people of God. Especially in the closing
work for the church, in the sealing time of the 144,000."
Again on page 267: "Mark this point
with care: Those who receive the pure mark of truth, wrought in them by the
power of the Holy Ghost, represented by a mark by the man in linen, are those
'that sigh and that cry for all the
abominations that be done' in the church....
Read the ninth chapter of Ezekiel. But
the general slaughter of all those
who do not thus see the wide contrast between sin and righteousness, and do not
feel as those do who stand in the counsel of God and receive the mark, is
described in the order to the five men with the slaughter weapons: 'Go ye after
him through the city, and smite; let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity;
slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women; but
come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary.' "
The definition of "general" is:
"extensive but not universal." Therefore it does not mean the
destruction of the world at the appearance of the Lord; but it has reference to
the wicked in the church. This slaughter
is literal, it is to separate and release God's people from sin and sinners, otherwise the marking would be of no value. The same subject is again brought to view in
"Testimonies for the Church," Vol. 5, page 211: "Here we see that the church -- the Lord's sanctuary -- was the first to feel the
stroke of the wrath of God." The
wrath of God cannot, and never has been spiritual. We are again reminded that the 144,000 are
the remnant: "Now indeed are the remnant 'men wondered at'... 'In that day shall the branch of the
Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent
and comely for them that are escaped of
When this number is sealed, probation will
close for the church, and the judgment for those who are in the world will
commence. As the "tares"
perish at the time when probation is closing for the church, just so at the
close of the judgment for the world the sinners shall come to their end; the
one is a figure of the other. It is said
of the 144,000: "These are they which are not defiled with women for they
are virgins." (Rev. 14:4.) The
"women" mentioned in this Scripture are symbols of impure
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churches. These
"women" are brought to view in Revelation 17, under the figure of the
woman sitting on the scarlet colored beast.
We quote Rev. 17:5: "And upon her forehead was a name written,
mystery,
The Servants of God In
the Time of the Harvest
In Revelation 7:3, the 144,000 are called
"The servants of our
God." If
servants, then they must have duties to perform. They are again brought to view by the prophet
Isaiah in connection with the purification of the church and the destruction of
the wicked: "And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape (the 144,000) of them into the
nations.... And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the
Lord out of all nations,... in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord" -- the church. (Isa.
66:19, 20.) "And the fruit
of the earth shall be excellent and comely for
them that are escaped of
It is also said of this wonderful company:
"And in their mouth was found no guile." (Rev. 14:5.) This Scripture makes it clear that the gospel
they proclaim is altogether the true Word of God. Therefore, the message they present to the
world cannot be questioned as to its purity.
The prophet of Patmos after speaking of the
sealing of the 144,000 says: "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 hand." (Rev. 7:9.) Therefore, this great multitude is gathered
from all nations, after the closing work for the church, and in the time of the
great harvest. The palms in their hands
signify victory over the beast and his image, death and the grave. One of the elders before the throne said of
them: "These are they which came out of great tribulation" (the time
of Jacob's trouble). (Rev. 7:14.) The
servant of the Lord also bears witness in the following quotations: "'And
the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain
and island were moved out of their places.
And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the
chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid
themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to
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the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from
the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from
the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be
able to stand?' Rev. 6:14-17.
" '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; and
cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.... These are they which came out of great
tribulation and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of
the Lamb'... Rev. 7:9, 17.
"In these Scriptures two parties are brought to view. One party permitted themselves
to be deceived, and took sides with those with whom the Lord has a
controversy." -- "Testimonies for the Church,"
Vol. 9, pp.
267, 268. As the Spirit of
Prophecy points out these two
companies (those who cried for the rocks, and those with the palms) both living
in the time of the great tribulation and the wrath of God, it is evident that
the great multitude with the palms in their hands are living saints won to the
gospel in the time of the harvest by the work of the 144,000.
Are The 144,000 of Both Sexes?
The command to mark this company so that
they fall not under the slaughter weapons by the figure of the five men, reads
as follows: "And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city,
through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the
abominations that be done in the midst thereof." (Ezekiel 9:4.) Because the Word says: "Set a mark upon
the foreheads of the men,"
therefore some have held the position that the entire company is made up of men
only. The second reason given for this
erroneous idea is that they are to be kings and priests and therefore they must
be men. The idea carried by these
passages cannot be sustained by other portions of Scripture. Thus we are compelled to study deeper into
the subject.
While Ezekiel calls them "men,"
John says they are "virgins." (Rev. 14:4.) Now, if we should take the position that
Ezekiel means men only, then we can as well say, John
means women only. Can it be possible
that one writer should contradict the other?
No indeed.
We conclude by the following Scriptures that the 144,000 are of both
sexes: "The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men
through him might believe." (John 1:7.)
"All men," must
include both men and women, otherwise salvation would be for men only. "And I, if I
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be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." (John 12:32.) If the word all men in this text does not include both sexes, then the women are
lost. "And the time of this
ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent." (The
Acts 17:30.) Again, if "all men" include not both
male and female, then women are not commanded to repent. It is evident that the noun, men, is a collective Biblical term of
both men and women. The same is true by
creation, for, God made the woman of the man.
Therefore, she is a wo-man. Again in Gal. 3:28, we read: "There is
neither male nor female: for ye are all
one in Christ Jesus."
Since there is no difference between either sex in Christ, then we see that women as well as men can be
kings and priests. The same thought can
be carried out by the experience of the Jewish nation: "And Deborah, a
prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged
From Paul's statement in 1 Timothy 2:12,
"I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but
to be in silence," you will note the meaning here is, that the woman is to
be in subjection to the man as God had ordained, and not that she is forbidden
to hold the office of a teacher. Again
we quote, "Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not
permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith
the law." (1 Cor. 14:34.) Read the chapter and you will see that Paul
wishes to establish order in the churches, for there was great confusion by
speaking in unknown tongues. Therefore,
to silence the confusion, he says: "Let your women keep silence in the
churches." He is not forbidding
them to speak if they have a duty to perform.
If this lesson was heeded in this age there would be a great change for
the better in the house of God.
In the beginning God created both the man
and the woman equal, as king and queen.
"And God blessed them, and
God said
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unto them, Be
fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every
living thing that moveth upon the earth." (Gen.
1:28.) Note that the dominion was given
to them both. However, after they sinned
a change was made: "Unto the woman He said,...
thy desire shall be to thy husband, and He
shall rule over thee." (Gen. 3:16.)
So, after the woman sinned she fell under the government of man. But that which Eve lost by deception, shall
be restored by redemption. Thus again
the equality of both shall be established as kings and queens. Therefore, "There is neither male nor
female in Christ Jesus." Christ
himself confirms the idea in the following expression: "For when they
shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but
are as the angels which are in heaven."
Thus the noun "men" used by Ezekiel, and the
noun "virgins" by John is
a collective Biblical term comprehending both.
Furthermore, the denomination numbers a little over 300,000 at present
time. Only about a third of them are
men. If every man was sealed and
numbered as one of the 144,000, we still would be far short of reaching the
total. Again we note at the time of the passover in
In that night wherever the blood appeared on
the door-post, the first born whether male or female, perished not, just so
now, those who receive the seal, have applied the blood on the door-post
(forehead), and as the first born of both classes, those who died and those who
did not, were a type of the present priesthood (ministry), evidently, the type
points forward to a ministry in the anti-type made up of both sexes -- the
first born who died represent the class that shall fall under the slaughter
weapons of the five men, and the first born who escaped from death, represent
the class that shall receive the mark of the man with the writer's inkhorn and
pass from death to life. Thus the first born who lived and passed through the red sea, are a
type of the 144,000. The first
fruits of the harvest, are the servants of God in the
time of the "loud cry" of
the Third Angel's Message.
After the purification of the church and the
sealing of the servants of God, then the message in the 18th chapter of
Revelation shall culminate in a "loud
cry:" "Come out of her, my
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her
plagues." (Rev. 18:4.) As the
saints hear the voice of the good Shepherd in the gospel message, they separate
themselves from the world and join the 144,000.
While this sifting process in the fallen churches is in progress, the
man with the
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writer's inkhorn seals those who come out. When all the saints shall come out of
The 144,000 are called
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