Revelation 7:9-14

9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.

11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,

12 Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

After the sealing of the 144,000 and before the last judgments, we see a great multitude that no man could number around the throne. These are all those saved through the testimony of the 144,000 during the great tribulation. They are those that died confessing Jesus. The 144,000 are the first fruits but their testimony brings the full grain harvest on earth. Some scholars say that these and the multitude they convert are not part of the Church since the Church already left in the rapture. That is not likely to be true; the faithful Church left the earth for heaven without seeing death,  as a reward like Enoch,  but the saints these convert are killed for their faith during the great tribulation or gathered by angels at the end of the great tribulation and also leave the earth for heaven  prior to the wedding.  Thus ,  the first fruits and the grain harvest will be included as members of the spiritual body that is also called the Bride of Christ if they endure until the end (Matthew 24:13).

The passage says this multitude  came out of  the great tribulation.  Since the 144,000 are the subject of the chapter, it implies that they received Jesus as a result of the evangelism of the 144,000 witnesses. Some teachers say that this is a parenthetical chapter that goes back to the rapture. They claim the 144,000 started their ministry at the time of the rapture. Actually, it is more likely that this parenthetical chapter goes forward through their ministry. The chapter ends with all the people saved as a result of their ministry appearing around the throne in heaven after the great tribulation. For it to go back in time you would have to ignore the start of the chapter.  The chapter starts with the words"after these things" - after what things?  Clearly, it is after the things John told us about in the previous Chapter s, so we cannot go back in time to the rapture of chapter four because that occurred before the things John just talked about in Chapter s five and six.

In addition, we might observe that Enoch (a foreshadow of Philadelphia) was taken some years before the judgment that came on the whole earth at the flood of Noah's time.

The ministry of the 144,000 Jews starts after the sixth seal is opened. Therefore, they could not have been already preaching during the time of the four horsemen described in the seal judgments. Nor could they have been preaching in the first half of a seven-year period that supposedly starts  at the rapture and ends seven years after the rapture  (as most popular authors teach). They do begin preaching at the beginning of the seventh week of Daniel and that does last seven years but the seventh week of Daniel probably ends at least 10 ½ years from the rapture and not the customary view of seven.