Revelations 7:9-10, NIV
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. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”
Our world is getting more and more divided. We are divided because of our opinions. In certain countries, there are physical violence and hurtful words against those who are different from the majority. The victims can be people with different skin colours.
Nelson Mandela the first Black President of South Africa from 1994-1999, is known globally as a premier symbol of peace, resilience and racial reconciliation. He wrote in his autobiography that: “No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
No one was born to hate. Love should come naturally to us, especially when we are the children of God.
1 John 4:8 – “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
1 John 4:16 – “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”
Why do we hate one another? Because it was taught to us. And more specifically because of SIN in us.
We were all born with sins into this world. Someone once said that there is the letter “I” in the word, “Sin” and also in the word “pride”. Sin happens is before I put myself before others, I think highly of myself, I put myself first, and we do not consider God or others.
Sin happens when I do certain things because it will make me feel happy, it will make me feel important, it will satisfy me, it will give me more money. Sin happens because it is always about me, my wants, my emotions and my needs.
But when we take the “I” out, we stop putting ourselves in the centre but Jesus. Jesus as the centre of our lives.
In Matthew 22:38 and 39 Jesus has taught us, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.”
Jesus said, “love your neighbour as yourself”, not more, not less. Love others just as how you would love yourself.
When we were children, we play with the other children at the kindergarten. Children are colourblind, they don’t see the difference on our skins.
When I first came to Sarawak, I was amazed by how many types of people groups we have in Malaysia. My school teachers were from different indigenous groups: Iban, Kenyah, Bidayuh. I made friends with the Ibans in my class and in my school.
In my young mind, I was amazed by all these types of different people groups and their language and their cultures.
Differences and diversity should be something to celebrate, not something that separate us. Our diversity is a reflection of our Creative God, not reasons for us to hate or discriminate or to use physical violence on those different from us. God is a creative God. He takes pleasure and joy in varieties.
Children are colour blind. As we grow older, we begin to put lenses as we look out on people. And we learn to stereotype people. Like what Nelson Mandela said, hate is learned, we are not born with hate.
We stereotype and categorise behaviours to people groups. We make assumptions based on what we observe from a few and consider the rest of the people group are like that. Every stereotype begins with ‘all,’ ‘always,’ or ‘never.’
We can also read about stereotypes in the Bible.
Jesus had called Philiip to follow Him. Full of excitement, Philip went to Nathanael and said,
“We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” (John 1:45, NIV)
Nathanael immediately responded: “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46, NIV)
Philip did not argue back but simply invited Nathanael: “Come and see.”
This invitation would change Nathanael’s life.
Nathanael stereotyped people from Nazareth. Nazareth was an insignificant village in Galilee. It had little reputation and was not mentioned in the Old Testament.
People naturally would expect the Messiah to come from somewhere more important, especially Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), the prophesied birthplace of the Messiah. After his encounter with Jesus, Nathanael professed, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.” (John 1:49)
His prejudice immediately disappeared after meeting Jesus.
Other examples stereotype in the Bible:
Jews and Samaritans (John 4) — generations of enmity and prejudice led Jews and Samaritans to avoid one another.
The hostility between Jews and Samaritans had existed for over 700 years. The Samaritans were the children of the Israelites who intermarried with foreigners in the land (after the Assyrian conquest of the Northern Kingdom (722 BC)).
To many Jews, the Samaritans were considered:
ethnically “mixed,”
religiously corrupt and morally compromised,
spiritually inferior.
Nothing good could come from Samaria.
Likewise, many Samaritans distrusted and resented Jews. This had become a deeply embedded cultural narrative passed down from generation to generation.
What did Jesus do? Jesus deliberately broke several social and religious conventions. He travelled through Samaria (John 4:4). And spoke to a Samaritan woman. Rabbis generally avoided public conversations with women, especially those from groups considered outsiders. He offered her the Living Water.
Jesus overturned stereotypes. Through her testimony, many Samaritans came to believe in Jesus (John 4:39–42). The very people many Jews avoided became among the first to proclaim Jesus as “the Savior of the world.”
The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) overturns ethnic and religious stereotypes.
Jesus told a story of a traveller getting injured:
a priest passed by,
a Levite passed by,
the priest and the Levite were religious leaders. But they did not stop to help someone in need. Instead, a Samaritan, considered as outsiders by the Jews stopped to help.
The priest and Levite, who were expected to exemplify holiness, did nothing and passed by the injured man.
The Samaritan noticed the wounded man, had compassion on him, treated his wounds, carried the injured man to safety, paid for his treatment and promise to return. It was the Samaritan whom the Jews despised who fulfilled God’s command to love the neighbour.
Gentiles were often viewed as “unclean”
In the Old Testament, the Israelites were set apart from other nations in terms of food and worship (e.g., Leviticus 11). The Israelites were to live in holiness because God has chosen them as His own people.
The Jews then began to see Gentiles as ceremonially “unclean” people.
Peter said to Cornelius: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile.” (Acts 10:28)
until God showed Peter a vision and taught him otherwise (Acts 10).
“God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.” (Acts 10:28)
Peter realized that God’s grace extends beyond Israel. Ethnic identity does not determine access to God’s salvation.
The Holy Spirit is given to Gentiles as well as Jews (Acts 10:44–48).
Peter later said: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. (Acts 10:34–35)
That was the turning point in the church’s mission.
Let us ask ourselves: Am I willing to cross social, cultural, or ethnic boundaries for the sake of the Gospel?
Stereotypes help us make quick judgments on people, and most of these stereotypes stop us from seeing the person God sees. A divided kingdom is not the kingdom God wants to establish. Jesus, the Son of God came for us so that we will learn to love each other and break away from disunity.
God does not categorise us. He knows us by name, individually, as His beloved child.
When John was writing the book of Revelations to the early Christians who were facing intense Roman persecution. The Christians were afraid, exhausted and tempted to give up on their Christian faith. But he showed them what would happen in eternity:
God loves diversity:
“A great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language…” (v. 9)
In God’s kingdom, there are no more distinction: you are from this race, you are from that country. What will we see is a great multitude from every tribe, every nation, every language.
Our skin colour and our ethnicity, and nationality, our dialects, our language, our culture are part of God’s Kingdom. All this will be a worship unto God. We will all be before God, no more wars that will separate us, no more harmful words and actions because of racism but our differences is a celebration in Heaven.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, understood that the Gospel is for everybody. He once said, “The world is my parish”. To him, the church had become confined by geographical boundaries. He was convinced that the Gospel is for everyone, everywhere, and that no Christian should feel restricted from sharing Christ simply because of church structures.
John Wesley lived in the 18th century. At that time, the Church of England had parish boundaries – a defined geographical area with responsibility for the people living there. The pastor was not expected to preach regularly outside their assigned parish without permission. This brought order to the church but at the same time, many people, especially the poor and those in rapidly growing industrial areas, had little pastoral care.
Many people were not going to church. Because of the urbanization and the early Industrial Revolution, many people were working long hours, lived in mining communities and rarely attended church and felt disconnected from organized religion.
Wesley realized that if people would not come to the church, the church needed to go to them. His friend, George Whitefield, encouraged him to preach outdoors to coal miners but Wesley was uncomfortable with the idea: he felt preaching belonged inside church buildings.
But after seeing thousands of miners who would never enter a church, Wesley changed his mind. Rather than waiting for people to attend church, Wesley preached: in fields, at marketplaces, outside factories, near mines, in prisons and anywhere he could.
For Wesley, the Christian love crossed: class divisions, educational differences, social status, occupation and geographical boundaries. He preached to: aristocrats, miners, prisoners, farmers, merchants, children, women and men.
He understood the Great Commission. Jesus said: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:19)
The Gospel does not have a geographical limit. God’s grace is for everyone. One of Wesley’s central theological convictions was prevenient grace—that God is already at work in every person’s life before they respond in faith. God’s love is for everyone. The Gospel should reach people where they are.
They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”
White Robes: Symbolize purity. This is not something we have earned because we have been good, but Revelation 7:14 tells us these robes were washed white in the blood of the Lamb. We can stand holy and pure before God purely because of what Jesus Christ has done on the Cross.
The Palm Branches: symbolize victory, celebration, and peace. Jesus had victory over sin and death. All the people of every nation will one day sing praises about God’s saving power.
Our now action:
What a beautiful and magnificent sight it will be that in God’s Kingdom, all nations and tribes will be together, praising God. But right now, there are many who have not heard of the Gospel. Jesus will only return when the Gospel has been preached to all peoples around the world, to all people groups and tribes.
Matthew 24:14 “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
How are we involved in this?
We can start with prayers: pray that that the Good News will reach all people groups, tribes and they have Bibles in their own languages.
How do we share the Gospel? Knowing God but must importantly, through our lives.
Conclusion:
This passage reveals the heartbeat of God, that His kingdom is for all people groups, all nations, would be saved in His kingdom. Not a single group should be forgotten.
Let us pray earnestly for the Gospel to reach all people groups. Let us also pray for our indigenous friends and those in rural areas, that God will minister to them and reveal Himself to them. Nowadays, through the Internet, the Gospel can have a broader reach. Are we actively reaching out for Christ?