.jpg)
In the middle of chapter 7 of his book of Revelations of
Jesus Christ, John again describes another scene of the redeemed standing in
front of the throne of God. This should
be a scene of worship and jubilation such as has yet to be experienced by
mankind in all of history to date. And
so it begins this way, but the ending contains a twist. We begin by setting the context, John has
recently been describing a series of events that occur as each of the six seals
are loosed on a book that God the Father offered only to one who was worthy to
open it. Jesus Christ the Lamb had taken
this book and so far, has opened six of its seals. Upon the sixth one, He returns to take the
redeemed home. However, John interrupts
the sequence for a moment to pause, and show in the first part of this chapter,
a special sealing of the people of God nearly right before He returns. This sealing identifies 144,000 servants who
will have a special role throughout the end of earth’s history and will remain especially
dedicated in the kingdom of heaven.
However, John seems to want to be clear from the next section of his
vision, that it is not ONLY the 144,000 that will be the redeemed who stand
before the Lamb in the kingdom He prepares for us now.
So John continues in verse 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;”
Notice first, John describes seeing a great multitude which were beyond
the numbering. He could have said
thousands times thousands times thousands for it is clear from later passages
he understood the concept of numbers this high.
But he did not. Instead he is
clear that this throng or multitude is too great to even categorize in this
limited way. Next, John is clear to
write, that these people are discernable to be from ALL nations AND kindreds
AND people AND tongues. Talk about
diversity. The salvation of God is NOT
limited only to the Jewish nation descending from Abraham. But instead it includes people like
Melchizideck a priest of God alive in the time of Abraham, and the sheik of
Midian who fathered Zipporah the wife of Moses and was aware of the God who
sometimes seemed present on Mt Horeb, it includes the harlot of the wall of
Jericho, and Ruth the Moabitess daughter-in-law of Naomi and grandmother of
David. All through Biblical history
salvation was always intended and available to any who sought to find the
redemption of the true God. His hands
were alive from the lives and visions of Pharaoh in the time of Joseph, to that
of Nebuchadnezzar in the time of Daniel.
And since His ascension, the gospel was going to ALL nations and the
harvest described here was great; people from EVERY ethnicity, group, and
language. The crowd standing before the
throne had the commonality of white robes, and palms in their hands. Despite our diverse origins, our fate of
salvation has us ALL stand equally before the throne of the Father, and of His
Son Jesus Christ, both discreetly identified in this passage.
John continues in verse 10 … “And cried with a loud voice,
saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.” Notice again the shouts of praise are
directed at BOTH our God upon His throne, AND unto the Lamb who is also
present. It is clear this is the shouts
of praise from mankind dressed in the white robes the Lamb has provided to
everyone there, His righteousness for our own.
For our chief reason for being there, is on the topic we praise Him for,
our salvation. This praise elicits a
wider response as John continues in verse 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, [verse 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.”
The innumerable host of the redeemed are joined by the entire throng of
angels who add their own praises to ours as we all worship our God and the
Lamb. Notice too, that even when the
work of our redemption has been completed, still present at the throne room of
heaven, are specifically listed the 24 elders, and the 4 beasts or other life
forms John has already described.
And as is the practice of those in heaven, who love to hear
of the goodness and salvation of our God, one of the elders poses a somewhat
rhetorical question to John as he writes in verse 13 … “And one of the elders
answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and
whence came they?” The elder gives John
a chance to reflect on the enormity of the harvest that the love of God has
been able to redeem. John answers in
verse 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.”
Therein is the key to our salvation.
It is not a lack of trials and tribulations that sees us made free. It is an embrace of them. It is for us to go through these things, and
grasp to Christ, to find His righteousness instead of our own. We are made pure through His love, imparting
purity within us when none existed there before. We wash the filth of our attempts at
self-salvation in the purity of His sacrifice of blood of our behalf. It may be our tribulation that drives us to
the foot of the cross. It may be our
hardships that remind us of our so great need.
It may be the things we want and are denied that teach us to want
something more, and something different, than just what would satisfy our
naturally selfish desires. It is a
reform of who we are, that is what we need, and what He offers. It is our tribulation and clinging to Christ
throughout it, that sees us take our place in the vision John describes. Perhaps he looks directly at you in this
scene. He would not know you by name,
because you were born so many years after his passing. But he may recognize you once again as we are
all reunited in the scene he foretells that will come to pass here.
The elder speaking to John continues to describe what
happens next in verse 15 … “Therefore are they before the throne of God, and
serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall
dwell among them.” The redeemed are
welcomed into the very throne room of God the Father, and have the high
privilege of serving him for all eternity.
The concepts of day and night become irrelevant. Perhaps the concept of time itself is to
become irrelevant as we grow tired of measuring it in the light of the
infinite. The elder continues in verse
16 … “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun
light on them, nor any heat.” Here the
elder destroys all the priorities of our life on earth in a single
sentence. We spend the majority of our
lives here on earth struggling to survive and meet our most basic needs. We need to eat, to drink, and to find shelter
to cover us from the elements. We
rationalize how much of our spiritual lives we are willing to sacrifice in
order that our basic needs are met first.
In one sentence the elder speaking to John, addresses these so paltry
concerns. We shall hunger no more, nor
thirst, nor are we to worry about the heat of the sun, or the cold of the
night. These so high priorities were
NEVER supposed to be something we worried about. Not in heaven, nor in this world. For His promise was to see our needs met in
this life as well as the next. We simply
do not trust Him enough to fulfill His promises here and believe we must ‘help’
Him do so. So we offer like Cain our
best efforts, and reflecting the trust of Cain in our worry and reality that
they are simply not enough nor could they ever be. Yet the promise here says plainly our needs
are to be met.
The elder continues in verse 17 … “For the Lamb which is in
the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living
fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” Here the elder cuts to the heart of the
matter. We shall hunger no more because
we are to be fed, again not of work of our own making, but by the Lamb Himself. As He promised us here on earth and we failed
to heed Him on the matter, in heaven we are to “led” unto fountains of living
waters. We do not find them on our own,
or through the work of our hands. They
are a gift He leads us to find. We
cannot find them when we attempt to lead ourselves there. Nor can we find food and water while we are
too busy to allow Him to do as He promised; instead we find ourselves always
distracted by the work we think we must perform in order to eat and drink. Our American ethic lives in contrast to the
word of God. As Americans we believe it
is our hard work that sees us survive and succeed. His Word tells us that our survival is His
gift to us, that He offers freely.
Should we elect to let Him lead us, we can free ourselves from the worry
and stress of our survival and enter into His peace and surety that what we
need will be provided in the day in which we need it, according to the mercy of
His so great love.
But there is in this last text in chapter 7, a phrase which
is too often overlooked. The elder
promises John that God the Father will “wipe away all tears from their
eyes”. One could apply many meanings to
this text. In a scene of such
jubilation, we could assume these are tears of joy, but then, why would God
feel the need to wipe away tears of gratitude and thanksgiving, for those are
sure to be repeated nearly every time we ponder the enormity of His gift to
us. No, I believe the tears here
described are those of a profound sadness, we have yet to ever even
consider. Despite our surroundings,
perhaps even because of them, I believe a sad recognition is to come upon
us. On this day, no matter how far we
progressed in the re-creation of His love in us here on earth, in heaven we
will finally know the fullness of His re-creation of who we are. We will on this day, truly know what it means
to love as He loves. We will truly know
the full absence of self-centered, self-focused, self-motivated lives. Instead we will be in perfect harmony with
Him. We will be in like-mind with Him, a
pure reflection of His image without the distortion of self to cloud it. In this setting we will at last be made
perfect, and know perfect love for others.
And then it will dawn upon us. That great and final day of judgment
Christianity has long feared. Not the
scenes of courtrooms where the damned attempt to plead their case before a
punishing God judge ready to pronounce sentence of eternal torture. This is not what John just wrote. But instead, surrounded by the perfection of
heaven, standing and welcomed even in to the throne room of God the Father
Himself. Our perfection completed by the
work of Christ within us, and no tempter or accuser of the brethren present to
torment us. Only us. We will stand in perfection of love for
others and come to the realization of just how little we did while still on the
this earth for the millions who did not share our fate of His mercy. We will realize like Oscar Schindler at the
end of Steven Spielberg’s movie that even if he had done just a little bit
more, another life could have been saved, another life could have been there
enjoying protection from the chaos and destruction of evil that surrounded
them. We, like Oscar, are doomed to
repeat this scene, and repeat this knowledge.
It will not be a vengeful God who stands in judgment of our pathetic
earthly lives. It will be us. It will be our purity that remembers with
infinite precision the slights we did to others on this earth. We will remember our sins with perfect
clarity and know how little we did to help others see the heaven we now reside
within. We will remember even worse the
actions we took that drove others away from the source of love.
Our sins have long caused ripples of pain that resulted in
the sacrifice of Christ’s blood to redeem us.
And our hearts remained unmoved.
We never fully appreciated how much our burden was upon Him until
now. And now as we share a like-mind
with Him, we begin to know what it means to see love rejected. We begin to see even worse how our own lives
and actions may have driven others away from God, away from forgiveness. We may have prompted others to do evil with
us, or to do evil because of us. In so
doing, we were agents of evil, that drove others away from His redemption and
to a fate we ourselves deserve. Perfection
is no barrier to memory. This is the
true judgment all Christianity should fear.
Not one of a vengeful God inflicting eternal torture by flame which is a
myth of His character and in reality is scheduled to have a final end
anyway. But one of infinite remorse, and
regret, for what we today refuse to do; to love others.
Our lives spent in hateful words of condemnation that bear
no fruit. That is the saddest picture of
Christianity there will ever be. Instead
of working with Him in like mind to love others back to the throne of grace, we
spend today finding it convenient to ignore our brother’s need, or worse, add
to it. When the perfection of love finally embraces us. It will cause us to remember a time when we
refused to be so molded. And when in our
stubborn refusal, we did evil in the sight of the Lord, and caused pain to
those who are not present to forgive us.
We will never know the forgiveness of those who were lost because we
could not find the energy to love them in spite of what they did to us. We, whether victim or perpetrator of evil by
those who are not present in heaven, will bear the heaviest of hearts at their
absence. It will not be a thing
celebrated. It will not be a thing of
threats used to condemn others and make ourselves feel better about our own
inadequacies. It will instead be a thing
of great personal pain that we simply DID NOT DO MORE. Oscar Schindler had a list that in
retrospect he believed was just not long enough. So will you.
So will you see your own list of those who you just did not love enough,
or love rightly. This list will haunt
you in the halls of perfection.
It is for this reason, that God the Father MUST wipe away
the tears from our eyes. If He did not,
we would spend the eternity of heaven mourning those who refused to be a part
of it with us and because of us. If He
did not, we would not ever be able to forgive ourselves as He has forgiven
us. But the lesson is not only intended
to show us His final infinite mercy. It
is to remind us that there is YET TIME TO LOVE. There is yet an opportunity to show love to
your spouse, or your children, or your parents, or your friends, or more
important still – to those who would call you their enemy. The distinction of enemy will no longer exist
in the perfection of heaven that is to come.
There, you will only call brother, who now you would use other names to
describe. There, you will finally
recognize the extreme value and importance of he or she who now you perceive to
be the bane of your existence. There is
NO enemy you carry in this world, who you will not one day mourn with the
heaviest of hearts for your personal part in their lack of attendance in the
jubilant scenes of worship. And there is
no forgiveness you will be able to offer yourself, for the loss of someone dear
to you, who also you simply did not love enough while there was yet time to do
it. We will NEED for God to once again
wipe away the tears from our eyes lest we never cease for weeping. But despite knowing our past will one day
require this mercy from the Lord, there is still YET TIME TO LOVE.
No act of love you perform in this life will ever be cause
for regret in the next one. The
Revelation of Jesus Christ that should be most salient to us all is His life of
purest love for others while He lived it in this world. We should take the time to submit ourselves
to Christ, so that while there is yet time in this world, we can be re-created
in His image, and come to know what it means to love others as He loves them
and us. As we are molded into a purer
reflection of His love, we will find ourselves with renewed energy to love
others and think nothing of the ‘cost’.
Those acts of selfless love, will be the acts that move others closer to
the throne of grace. They will be in our
memory a stark contrast from the acts of self-love that pulled others away from
the presence of Christ. Acts of love for
others will not require a wiping away of our tears, and there is yet time to
see them done, and to know joy in the doing of them.
The first verse of chapter eight resumes with the opening of
the final seventh seal. John records
there … “And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven
about the space of half an hour.” The
pause is over. The sealing is
completed. The Lord has returned to
claim us in the sixth seal. The scene of
praise John has just described in heaven is about to take place. Perhaps upon the opening of the seventh seal,
heaven is silent because we who have been redeemed are on our way back to it
from the recently destroyed earth. We
are journeying home to the Father. Our
earthly lives completed. The time to
love here on earth at an end. We carry
now, only the list of those to who we loved, and those who we did not. Our jubilation will yet be tempered by our
tears. But His mercy and love are
greater still and will see those tears yet wiped from our eyes …
And further Revelations were still to come …
No comments:
Post a Comment