If you recall Revelation 7:14 during the tribulation, these are the people who came from all sorts of different nations, they’re Gentiles. Their salvation is different from ours, in that they wash their own robes in the blood of the Lamb whereas we, the Christian church, are washed by the blood of Christ, He does the washing for us. The verse also mentions that they came out of the great tribulation, meaning there’s finally that post tribulation rapture. Remember in Revelation 6 they were all in paradise below the earth and God told them to wait until the rest of the brethren received their robes like them to go to heaven, so at this point in verse 14 they received their post tribulation rapture and at verse 15 they’re up in heaven.
Revelation 7:15 “Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.”
In Revelation 6 they were below the altar on earth at Jerusalem but now they’re before the throne, that means they went up. They’re serving God up in heaven in his temple.
God has a temple up in heaven. We’re going to see similar things in the Old Testament Mosaic pattern that God does up in heaven. In the book of Hebrews, it mentioned that the things that the Jews did on earth with Moses, tabernables, sacrifices and laws are patterned after the things in heaven. But Revelation 21:22 the New Jerusalem has no temple in it.
Revelation 21:22 “And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.”
There is no temple in this New Jerusalem.
Who is this New Jerusalem? The Christian church. New Jerusalem is the Christian church and it has no temples.
In Christian church, there is neither Jew nor Gentile. That’s why Revelation 7 is not talking about Christians because they mentioned one category of people, the Jews and another category of people, the Gentiles, but God doesn’t see it that way. He sees Christians as one. So why did He separate it in Revelation 7? Because the church is no longer there. God is switching back to Israel.
So Revelation 7:15 shows they’re doing a Jewish activity, this has nothing to do with Christians. This is a Jewish thing, dispensational for tribulation saints, not toward the Christian church.
Revelation 7:16 “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.”
Why does the verse 16 say that ‘they shall hunger no more’? Because they were starving to death at the tribulation. So now they’re no longer hungry. They can’t even drink because they don’t have the mark of the beast. So now they drink.
They’re not going to get the heat from the sun, which is kind of interesting because they’re going to flee to Selah, Petra, the rock and over there is like a deserted area and you can get a lot of heat so it might have some reference to that.
Revelation 7:17 “For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
There’s your answer, Jesus is sitting in the middle of the throne. Because they were starving to death at the tribulation, they had no food, they were the ones being eaten up by the Antichrist but now Jesus is feeding them.
Up in heaven, there are fountains of waters. Why? Because they cried, they wept during that time. That’s why Jesus said in Matthew 24 to the tribulation saints, ‘woe to them with child and give suck’ in those days, because the Antichist is persecuting them.
People think that when they die and go to heaven, they’re never going to shed tears in heaven. That’s not true. The verse says that God shall wipe away all tears. That means that they were shedding tears in heaven but God had to wipe it away for them.
When a Christian goes up, we have to go through the judgment seat of Christ. There, God will give you 5 different crowns, He is also going to give you gold, silver, precious stones but He’s also going to judge you for all the works that you did in your life. There’s going to be a lot of tears over the things that you regret you didn’t serve Jesus Christ.
Then there’s going to be the great white throne judgment where God is judging all people through the book of life and casting them into hellfire because their names are not written in the book of life.
When you see your loved ones and family members whom you try to give the gospel or failed to give the gospel, that you’re not going to weep when they are cast into the lake of fire?
There’s definitely going to be weeping. That’s why Revelation 21 God says God wipes away their years because in Revelation 20 they were shedding tears seeing their loved ones damned into hell. People who talk about there’s no tears in heaven is doctrinally false.
Revelation 8:1 “And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.”
There are 7 seals up in heaven. The sixth seal is a finality, that’s when the rich people and everyone is crying for the rocks to fall on them to hide from the face of him that’s coming down. That’s second advent, this is the end.
What’s interesting about the seventh seal is that it’s not after the sixth seal chronologically. It’s going to be an overview. In Revelation, it’s impossible to read the bible from chapter 1 to 22 and place them all in chronological order.
It’s definitely possible for them to not be in chronological order if you read Genesis 1 to 2. Genesis 1 is the full account summary of creation, chapter 2 He gives specific details. In chapter 1 He said He created Adam and Eve but all of a sudden, chapter 2 talks about Eve being created. That’s not chronological order. It’s natural in God’s perspective that He will have certain chapters in chronological order and other parts as a full account summary.
“there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.”
Dr Ruckman says he wasn’t sure about why there would be silence in heaven for half an hour.