“Saying, Harm neither the earth nor the sea nor the trees, until we have sealed the bond servants of our God upon their foreheads. And [then] I heard how many were sealed (marked) out of every tribe of the sons of Israel: there were 144,000.” Revelation 7:3-4 ->me: For a long time I have struggled to understand how the 144,000 fit in the end times. I now feel reasonably good about my understanding after prayer, study and talking over with Marianne. You really must read chapter 6 and 7 of Revelation to *start* putting this together and additionally many other places in the bible to get a firm grip. The angel speaking the first sentence, of the 2 verses above, is talking about sealing ALL of the bond servants of God. John uses ‘and then’ many times to double-click into a situation with more detail. Here he does it again but focuses in on the sons of Israel as (what I believe to be) a subset of the overall set of chosen people still living during this time of tribulation. Now for my personal take away -> Revelation 7:1 “…I saw four angels stationed at the four corners of the earth firmly holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind should blow on the earth or sea or upon any tree” – This shows the restraint the Lord will use to protect His people. Those who are called His ‘bond servants’ (people utterly devoted) are covered by Lord and the mark they display will cause destruction to pass right by them. Now, as a pre-tribber, I expect to be with the Lord before the 6th seal is opened but what a comfort to know that the Lord will protect His own and seal them with His Name before the worst hits.