John saw a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne. It is a picture of the end. In many ordinary churches, a small piece of it is already sitting in the room on Sunday morning.
Near the end of the Bible there is a picture that many Christians carry with them for life.
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.
It is a vision of the end of all things. And yet, if you look around many ordinary churches on an ordinary Sunday, you can see a small piece of it already.
Read the verse slowly, and one thing stands out. The multitude is not described as people who used to belong to nations and languages. They are still from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne.
Earlier in the book, the new song sung to the Lamb says the same: "by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation" (Revelation 5:9, ESV).
Heaven, in John's vision, does not erase where people came from. The Persian grandmother, the Ukrainian student, the Danish farmer and the Ghanaian nurse are not turned into one uniform crowd. They are gathered, each recognisably themselves, and all of them worshipping the same Lord.
We find that a deeply hopeful thing. The language you learned from your mother is not something you have to leave at the door of heaven. And if not there, then not at the door of the church either.
Picture a church in an ordinary town. Not a large international congregation, just a local church that preaches in the language of the country. On a given Sunday the room might hold a couple who arrived from Iran a few years ago, a young man who fled the war in Ukraine, an exchange student from Brazil, a family from the Philippines, a grandmother visiting her grandchildren from abroad.
Every one of them came to worship. Some of them follow the sermon well. Some of them follow parts of it. Some of them are carried mostly by the songs, the faces and the kindness of the people around them.
That room is already a small foretaste of Revelation 7:9. Every nation, tribe, people and language is a long way off, but four or five of them are right there, sitting together.
Paul writes: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28, ESV)
Unity in Christ has never meant sameness. The church in Antioch had Simeon called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene among its leaders (Acts 13:1). The letter to the Ephesians tells believers from the nations: "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19, ESV). Fellow citizens, not guests who are tolerated.
And at Pentecost, the first sermon of the church was heard by each person "in his own native language" (Acts 2:8, ESV). From the first morning, the gospel has travelled in many languages, and never asked anyone to give up theirs first.
Churches that notice the many languages in their room often find simple ways to honour them:
A song in two languages. One verse in the language of the country, one in the language of a family in the room.
The Lord's Prayer, each in their own language. Everyone praying at the same time, in the words they learned first. It is one of the most beautiful sounds a church can make.
A Scripture reading by a member in their mother tongue, with the text on the screen in the local language.
A shared meal where every family brings something from home.
None of this needs a strategy. It only needs someone to notice who is in the room.
The hardest part, for many guests, is still the sermon itself: forty minutes of the most important words of the week, in a language they only half have. This is why we build MulingStream. A guest scans a code, picks their own language, and follows the sermon live on their own phone, listening or reading along. When the preacher quotes a verse, Smart Hints show the guest that verse from a Bible translation in their own language. The church chooses nothing in advance: each guest picks from 200+ languages, including their regional variants.
We are also building church passes, so that a church can keep translation running every week and pay only when someone actually listens. You can read about what we are building.
Revelation 7 ends with a promise to the great multitude: "For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." (Revelation 7:17, ESV)
Every nation, tribe, people and language, gathered and at home. Until that day, may every guest in your church find a place where they are seen, and may your church be blessed in all its languages.
We show you the whole thing live, in about fifteen minutes. Nothing is decided on the call and nothing follows it: you see it, and then you are the judge.