Hearing and Seeing

Revelation 7:9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.

There is often a difference between what we hear and what we see. Or is this just an old person’s problem? I have hearing difficulty, so I have become dependent on seeing people’s mouths to help me differentiate between certain words. So you can imagine how difficult it is for me to hear correctly in an age of face masks.

Sometimes what we hear doesn’t match what we see. The hear the sound of a gunshot only to realize it was a car backfiring. The whimper of a small child only to realize it is a small dog. The shattering of glass only to realize it is the ringtone on someone’s phone.

The author of Revelation heard and saw two things in this chapter of Revelation. He heard an angel call out in a loud voice about an army of people to be protected from the coming difficulties. The number was twelve times twelve thousand, and equal number from each of the tribes of Israel.

But then the author turns to see the event unfolding and he sees a great multitude, an innumerable amount. And they aren’t just Jews. They come from all of humanity. Nations don’t matter. Ethnicities don’t matter. Clans don’t matter. Language doesn’t matter.

What he sees is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies about God’s Kingdom. All the human categories of humanity have been eliminated in the Church. They no longer matter. They are irrelevant. They become part of the gathered creatures who render to the LORD what is due Him.

In a time when humanity is being divided into ever smaller and less relevant categories, the Church stands as the place of unity, or at least it should stand. And this is the picture that John presents to the seven churches to which he is writing. In Jesus, the Lamb who is able to open the scroll, worthy of all praise and honor and glory, we are all united and together in pursuit of Him.

So next time you hear something, see what is really happening and notice the discrepancy between hearing and seeing. I think that the LORD is working in that discrepancy to teach us something about ourselves and about our relationship with Him.