What part does the 144,000 play in the "Time of Trouble"?
When does the 144,000 show up on the scene?
Who are they?
Is the number literal?
What part do they play in last day events?
What do you believe?
When do they "show up"?
Or rather when is their number made up?
Probably during the great testing time before probation closes during the great shaking.
Revelation 14 shows us the 144,000 follow the Lamb where ever He leads and have no "guile" or deception.
From MR14 pages 90-94
"A period is coming when everyone will take sides between the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, which the Lord has sanctified and blessed, and the spurious sabbath instituted by the man of sin. ...
This persecuting power will compel the worship of the beast by insisting on the observance of the sabbath he has instituted. Thus he blasphemes God, "sitting in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God" [2 Thessalonians 2:4]....
they would rein up the faithful and loyal subjects of the kingdom of God, depriving them of their liberty of conscience, bringing them before magistrates and judges, and pronouncing sentence against them, delivering them into prison, putting them into the chain gang and even condemning them to death...
One of the marked features in the representation of the 144,000 is that in their mouth was found no guile....
Men who conceal their convictions of duty because they are afraid of suffering persecution are not following the true, but the false, shepherd. To maintain principle at all hazard is the highest path one can travel, because by doing this we follow Jesus....
She goes on to say that
if people are not voicing the third angel's message now, they will have no conscientious scruples to resist Sunday observance.
That is a hard hitting statement, as it seems to be the human nature of many of us to "be quiet" when we are with other people who don't know or accept the three angels message. We don't want to have them think we are "strange" or something.
Somehow the full conviction that this is an eternal life or death message doesn't seem to really alarm us as we intermingle with people.
From this I conclude that the 144,000 share the 3rd angels message with conviction, and will continue to do so in spite of persecution and suffering. They will not waver though everything in this world turns against them. They will "triumph over the beast and his image" even though for awhile it will seem this beast and image is winning.
They will, in a sense be that 4th angel (messengers) of Rev. 18:1-4 as their witness is heralded all over the world proclaiming that religious/political system is a counterfeit, calling people to choose Christ and the path of dedicated obedience to Him, which is the hope for mankind. By their lives they will show that they would rather die than bow before that counterfeit worship system.
And they will have a deep concern for others, as well as a deep love for the Lamb, Jesus Christ, their Lord and Savior.
Why were they [the 144,000] so specially singled out? Because they had to stand with a wonderful truth right before the whole world, and receive their opposition, and while receiving this opposition they were to remember that they were sons and daughters of God, that they must have Christ formed within them the hope of glory. They were ever keeping in view the great and blessed hope that is before them. What is it? It is an eternal weight of glory. Nothing could surpass it. {1SAT 72.3}
As to "literal" or "symbolic"
All I know is that the number of people who will stand through the great trial, will be relatively small, yet we are not to worry about the number itself, our focus is to follow the LAMB -- we are to strive with all the help that God gives us to be among that number.
