Sonlight Devotional

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Scripture reading: Revelation 7:4

Brother John said in Revelation 7:4, “And I heard the number of them which were sealed.” Any time you see numbers in Scripture, it is a revelation God is giving you. God is NOT telling you how many people were sealed. GOD IS GIVING YOU A REVELATION. The revelation is that “and there were sealed AN HUNDRED AND FORTY AND FOUR THOUSAND of all the tribes of the children of Israel.”

Numbers in Scripture form a very important part of the dimensional gospel. They lend depth to the gospel; things are being said by the numbers that are not expressed otherwise. For instance, the number ONE is the number of God. The number TWO is the number of witness. The number THREE is the number of divine fullness (good, better, best). Number FOUR is the number of tribulation and when the tribulation comes three times, it comes to the fullness of tribulation which means victory. For instance, Moses’ life was divided into three forty-year periods. The first forty years he spent in Pharaoh’s palace preparing and training. The second forty years he spent in the wilderness, and the third forty years he spent leading the children of Israel out of Egypt to the borders of the Promised Land. That was the victory. His work had been accomplished.

FIVE is the number of ministry or the number of grace. SIX is the number of man. SEVEN is the number of perfection. Man cannot go further than six in all his endeavors. Therefore, seven is God’s perfection. EIGHT is the number of new beginnings. NINE is the number of judgment. Sometimes this number is used for Satan. TEN is the number of divine order, and ELEVEN is the number which marks the undoing of divine order and falls short of twelve, which is completion. I say all this to bring you to number twelve. TWELVE is completion of God’s government.

Let me give you a basic outline of the Word of God. The Word of God is written as no other book on earth or no other that man could write. No man could write one page of the Bible. This is why we know it is divinely done. The Bible is written in Greek and the Hebrew.

Let us look at the Hebrew. The Hebrew has a numeral for every letter in the alphabet. Each letter has a value, a numeric value. The whole of the Bible is written in this way. Every thought brought forth can be divided by seven equally. It is sevens, sevens, sevens, right through the whole Bible. Every thought, every sentence, every idea, every word, when put together with other words, can produce seven, seven, seven – always divided by seven. This is not humanly possible. I believe some time ago, somebody put out a $25,000 reward for anybody who could write anything in this manner and nobody could. I am sure no one can. This is what makes us know the Bible is absolutely authentic. Any part of it that does not match this trial of sevens is not true, it is not of the Bible, it is not of God. We know that what we have here is of God.

The Apocrypha and other books which were taken out as being noncanonical do not come up to this standard and that is one of the reasons that they were cast out. On the other hand, all the books of the Bible (for instance, the King James Version) have been certified by Jesus Christ and the apostles. They quoted these books. Jesus would not have quoted Moses if He did not believe that Moses was of God. If what Moses wrote was not of God, Jesus, the son of God, would not have quoted him. Jesus and all the apostles quoted from all the books of the Old Testament and that makes them authentic.

Let us look at this number 144,000. This number is derived by multiplying 12 x 12 x 1,000. Twelve is the number of completion. There are two completions: the completed man who is in a completed church. So if the completed man is right, according to God’s order, then the completed church will be right, according to God’s order. We have 12 multiplied by 12 which equals 144 followed by three zeros, for the end result of 144,000. The word “zero” is derived from the Hebrew word for seed “zera.” In Genesis 3:15 the Lord cursed the serpent and told him that the seed of the woman would bruise his head – which seed is Jesus Christ.

In the Old Testament, there were 12 persons anointed, 12 patriarchs, and 12 tribes of Israel. Exodus 28:1 speaks of the 5 anointed priests who were Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. The 7 kings that were anointed were Saul, David, Absalom, Solomon, Jehu, Joash, and Jehoahaz. This makes up the 12 anointed persons. Notice the sixth anointed person, king Saul (1 Samuel 10:1) proved to be a failure, but he was number 6. Six is the number of man. David was number 7 and he was God’s perfect choice. We can see the whole thing working according to numbers and according to Scripture. In the New Testament, there were 12 apostles, 12 foundations in the heavenly Jerusalem, 12 gates, 12 pearls, and 12 angels.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 1, pages 145-147)

Thought for today: The Word of God is in three dimensions. Let us be good Bible students in our understanding of the numbers in Scripture.