dfw69 said in post 148:
Why are only 144000 allowed to know the truth and the rest allowed to be decieved?
Note that nothing requires that. For all obedient people in the church will be spiritually protected during the future tribulation of Revelation chapters 6 to 18 and Matthew 24, no matter what happens to them physically (Romans 8:35-37). The 144,000 male-virgins part of the church (Revelation 14:4), along with some others, will be physically protected so that they will survive the tribulation's first stage (Revelation 6), while others will die and their souls will enter heaven (Revelation 7:9,14). Near the end of this first stage, the 144,000 will be sealed (Revelation 7:3-4) for physical protection before the unsealing of the 7th seal (Revelation 8:1), out of which will come the tribulation's 7 trumpets (Revelation 8:1-2). The first 6 trumpets' events, up to Revelation 9:19, will be the tribulation's 2nd stage. The seal which the 144,000 will receive (which will be different from and in addition to the seal of the Holy Spirit himself which they and all others in the church receive: Ephesians 1:13) will physically protect them during this 2nd stage (Revelation 9:4).
After the 2nd stage is over, the 144,000 male-virgins part of the church will be caught up in their mortal bodies as the "man child" to God's throne in heaven (Revelation 12:5, Revelation 14:4-5, Textus Receptus), like how Enoch and Elijah were caught up in their mortal bodies to heaven (Hebrews 11:5; 2 Kings 2:1). Right after the 144,000 are caught up, the tribulation's 3rd stage, the literal 3.5-year worldwide reign of the Antichrist (the individual-man aspect of the beast) will begin (Revelation 12:5-6). This time period is shown from 4 different angles in Revelation chapters 11 to 14 (Revelation 11:2b-3, Revelation 12:6,14, Revelation 13:5-18, Revelation 14:9-13).
The 144,000 will remain in heaven before God's throne (Revelation 14:5, Textus Receptus) during the time of the Antichrist's reign (Revelation 14:9-13, Revelation 13:5-18), while two other parts of the church will still be on the earth: the figurative "woman" who represents those in the church who will flee into prepared wilderness places and be physically protected (Revelation 12:6,14), and the remnant of her seed (Revelation 12:17), those in the church who will remain in the cities and not be physically protected, but will be persecuted in every nation, imprisoned, and beheaded by the Antichrist (Revelation 13:7-10, Revelation 14:12-13, Revelation 20:4-6, Matthew 24:9-13).
After the Antichrist's reign is declared legally over at the sounding of the 7th trumpet (Revelation 11:15), the 7 plagues of the 7 vials of God's wrath will come out of the 7th trumpet's heavenly-temple opening (Revelation 11:19, Revelation 15:5 to 16:1). These vials will be the tribulation's 4th and final stage (Revelation 16). Because the church isn't appointed to God's wrath (1 Thessalonians 5:9), none of these vials will be directed at those in the church who will still be alive on the earth at that time, still waiting for Jesus' coming as a thief (Revelation 16:15). Instead, they will go into protective chambers which they will have built for themselves on the earth (Isaiah 26:20), just as Noah and his family went into the protective ark which they had built for themselves on the earth (Genesis 7:7). So some in the church will survive the entire future tribulation on the earth. They're those who will still be "alive and remain" at Jesus' 2nd coming to be raptured (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17) immediately after the tribulation (Matthew 24:29-31; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8). These survivors will have experienced God's miraculous physical protection (Psalms 91) without having to have been part of the 144,000.
dfw69 said in post 148:
Why are only 144000 allowed to know the truth and the rest allowed to be decieved?
Regarding the 144,000, they will all be Christians (Revelation 14:1,4), and so they will all be part of the church (cf. Ephesians 4:4-6). They will be the firstfruits of the church (Revelation 14:4) in the sense of its best part (cf. Numbers 18:12). They will be male virgins (Revelation 14:4), who could all have been born in the 20th or 21st century, and who could all already be part of the church. For they will all be alive on the earth, and will all already be God's servants (Revelation 7:3; cf. Romans 6:22, Philippians 1:1), by the time of Revelation 7:3-8 (during the first stage of the future tribulation of Revelation chapters 6 to 18 and Matthew 24). They will have entered the tribulation along with the rest of the church alive at that time, for there will be no pre-tribulation rapture (2 Thessalonians 2:1-8, Matthew 24:29-31, Revelation 19:7 to 20:6).
The 144,000 can include both Jews and Gentiles in the church, for all genetic Jews in the church remain members of whichever tribe of Israel they were born into (Romans 11:1, Acts 4:36). And all genetic Gentiles in the church have been grafted into Israel (Romans 11:17,24, Ephesians 2:12,19, Galatians 3:29), and so have been grafted into its various tribes (cf. Ezekiel 47:21-23). So the entire church is the 12 tribes of Israel (Revelation 21:9,12; 1 Peter 2:9-10). This is necessary, for all those in the church are saved only by the New Covenant (Matthew 26:28; 1 Corinthians 11:25; 2 Corinthians 3:6, Hebrews 9:15), and the New Covenant is made only with Israel (Jeremiah 31:31-34, John 4:22b). John 10:16 refers to the "other sheep" of believers who are Gentiles being brought into "this fold" of Israel, which is the same as the "one fold" of the church (1 Corinthians 12:13, Ephesians 4:4-6, Revelation 21:9,12). A genetic Gentile believer can pray and ask which tribe of Israel he has been grafted into, and he will receive an answer from God, if he asks in faith (cf. Matthew 21:22), without any wavering (cf. James 1:6-7).
Also, all those in the church, no matter whether they're genetic Jews (Acts 22:3) or genetic Gentiles (Romans 16:4b), have become spiritually-circumcised Jews if they've undergone the spiritual circumcision of water-immersion (burial) baptism into Jesus (Romans 2:29, Philippians 3:3, Colossians 2:11-13).
The tribe of Dan is missing from the list of the 144,000's twelve tribes (Revelation 7:4-8; there, "Joseph" stands for Ephraim: Numbers 1:32, Psalms 78:67, Ezekiel 37:16b,19) because the Israel they're from isn't genetic Israel with its 12 genetic tribes which include Dan (Genesis 49:28,17), but rather spiritual Israel (Romans 9:6-8), which consists of all the elect (Romans 9:11-13), both elect Jews and elect Gentiles (Romans 9:24).