And they are singing as if a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders; and no one was able to master that song but the hundred and forty-four thousand, who have been bought from the earth.

Revelation 14:1, 3-5.

8. What indicated there would be a fewness of Kingdom sharers?

⁸ Ah, then, just one hundred and forty-four thousand were “bought from the earth,” “bought from among mankind as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb,” for a place on the governmental Mount Zion in the heavens. What? Only 144,000 from among the billions of people that have lived and died during the past nineteen centuries since the days of Christ’s apostles? So few comparatively as 144,000? How different this Scriptural fact is from the idea in Christendom that the hundreds of millions of her church members will go to heaven at death! Here let us remember that “firstfruits” of any harvest are not the whole crop, but are merely a small token selection from the whole crop. Jesus hinted at the fewness of the Kingdom members when he said to his disciples: “Have no fear, little flock, because your Father has approved of giving you the kingdom. Sell the things belonging to you and give gifts of mercy. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, a never-failing treasure in the heavens.”​—Luke 12:32, 33.

SPIRITUAL ISRAELITES

9, 10. (a) With what did the 144,000 have to be sealed? (b) Out of what nation were they sealed, and how many to a division?

⁹ That comparatively small number, 144,000, is not a miscalculation. It was also set forth earlier by John, in Revelation 7:1-8.