The Jehovah Witnesses believe that they are the 144,000. That number has already been fulfilled, so because of that, the remaining Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot go to heaven but they have to rule over the earth. But that’s ridiculous because the 144,000 is actually referring to virgin males.

Now because Revelation is a deep book, let’s be open to all sorts of logical interpretation as long as they’re scriptural. The ‘virgin’ males may be spiritual, not literal. Jehovah’s Witnesses get all giddy and say that Revelation 14:4 applies to them, but you can’t do that because we’ve seen in Revelation 7 that these are literally from the tribes of Israel. Some people might say that these are referring to spiritual tribes of Israel.

Remember that Revelation is filled with spiritual application and literal application. A great example is Revelation 2 and 3, hyper-dispensationalists try to apply that to tribulation only but there’s a lot of rich spiritual application to the Christian church especially when you look at the past 2000 years of church history.

The book of Revelation consists of both spiritual application and literal application. If you take only one form of application: spiritual, then you’re a heretic. If you take only one form of application: literal, then you’re a heretic. In the Bible, it is important to have a spiritual and literal application. How can you tell? Just look at scripture with scripture, read the verse as it says.

Now Revelation 7 is obviously for the tribes of Israel literally because it’s mentioning the specific tribe name and the exact number. It’s not okay to say that one person is spiritually from the tribe of Dan and the other person is spiritually from the tribe of Simeon. Even in a spiritual sense, this is still referring to Israel.

In Revelation 12, we know that this is a spiritual application, not literal, with the woman up in heaven giving birth to Jesus Christ and that’s referring to virgin Mary. The heretical Catholic doctrine can be found from literal interpretations, that’s something to keep in mind about. So in Revelation 12, we recognize that this is something spiritual and if you compare that with Genesis as well as other portions of scripture, we know that this is Israel.

So whether you make it spiritual or literal, you cannot escape the fact that it’s Israel.

Not only that, from the time the tribulation begins, you don’t see the church being mentioned one time in the Bible. When you look at salvation throughout the entire tribulation, it’s guaranteed that it’s not going to match up with Pauline epistles, it’s going to match with Old Testament major and minor prophecies.

If you doubt that, look up certain salvation verses in the tribulation time period and compare that with Old Testament verses and previous Revelation studies that we’ve done, that tribulation salvation is undoubtedly Jewish and different from the Christian church.

Now if you believe in a spiritual application or taking it like a hyper dispensation where everything is literal, you’re going to miss a goldmine, which is comparing scripture with scripture. Hyper dispensationalism, what they’re going to overlook when they deny the spiritual application over here is on the ‘virgins’, look at Matthew 25 and compare it with Ephesians 5.

The church is known as the bride of Christ but hyper dispensationalists tried to make this Jewish. This teaching is nonsense. They try to combine Ephesians 2 with Matthew 25, that’s why they’re not really KJV bible believers. Matthew 25 did not say ‘virgin’, it says ‘virgins’, it’s plural. Whereas Ephesians 2 is chaste virgin, it’s singular. That’s why there’s no distinction here. Not only that, if you compare scripture with scripture, Matthew 25’s virgins make sense because of the 144,000  from Revelation 7, it’s not singular.

Matthew 25:1 “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.”

The kingdom of heaven is a Jewish kingdom. Notice that it says virginS here.

If you read verses 1 through 13, when Jesus is coming for them, there’s going to be tribulation news that we’re going to miss the rapture because the rapture is conditional based on works. That’s why they’re trying to get work for their oil. Notice at verse 12 it says that “I never knew you.” Compare that to every passage that God sends a lost soul to hell, He says I never knew you.

Those people who received the Holy Ghost, that’s the oil, that means it’s in them, it doesn’t run out. This does not mean that these people were never saved to begin with, they had the Holy Ghost, they had the oil. Christians are promised, sealed unto the day of redemption with the Holy Ghost. Referring to Ephesians 1:13-14 and Ephesians 4:30, no matter what sin they commit or grieve the Holy Spirit, they are sealed.

But for the Jews, you’d notice in Revelation and Matthew 24, it’s all about enduring, faith and works, resisting the mark of the beast.

Ephesians 5:23 “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.”

It’s very plain here that the wife is referring to the church. Hyper dispensationalists try to twist the word church by applying it to Israel but if you do that, then why don’t you do it to the rest of Pauline’s epistle?

Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;”

The wife is likened to the church.

2 Corinthians 11:2 “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.”

Notice that it’s a singular virgin to Christ.