Revelation 7:9-17 After this I beheld, and, see, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds… 1. There is nothing which is so distressing to an earnest man as the thought which sometimes rises in his mind, that here we are bound together in families and nations; that after death all such relations cease; that all becomes individual and solitary. If St. John's teaching is true, this teaching is false. The multitude that no man can number is a society. Their robes have become white, because every stain of selfishness has been washed from them by the blood of the Lamb. Their palms show that they have gotten the victory over those causes which have destroyed the unity of kindreds and nations here. There is no dull uniformity, no single tongue: but all is harmonious amidst diversity. In that company the one word which is connected with the Divine name is Salvation; salvation from the curse that men have made for themselves. 2. The sight of this multitude from every nation and kindred must have been a lesson to the missionary of that day, may be a lesson to the missionary of this, tending to abate his pride, but also — why do I say but, why not therefore: — his despair. He sometimes tries to console himself with thoughts of God's mercy to those who are ignorant, and have had no means of knowing better. But then he sees that the heathens among whom he goes are actually brutalised and corrupted; no tolerance of their religion can make that fact less appalling to him. And then, when he thinks how few can ever hear his preaching, how few can understand the sounds he utters, he begins to doubt if God has not deserted His own world. But it is not so. His converts may be few. He may have little power of making himself intelligible. But He of whom the missionary speaks, He who has sent him, has His ways of making Himself intelligible, has His ways of bringing people of every nation, and tongue, and clime, through much tribulation, to knowledge of the Lord who died for them and is ever with them, to a knowledge of His Father and their Father. 3. I am aware how easily a captious bystander, knowing nothing of the real anguish of a missionary, or of his real inspiration, may turn what I have said into an argument why he may be indifferent to the work, seeing it will be performed without him. In hours of unutterable sorrow, voices of consolation have come to you, you knew not from whence. In times of temptation, when your souls were balancing on the edge of a precipice, some old sentence has been brought back to you from the field of sleep, some house or tree has served to pour forth strange warnings or encouragements. Why may not those whispers have been borne from those who spoke them of old to the ear, not as now to the heart? Why may not elder patriots and martyrs be echoing Christ's own words in the ears of their brothers, in lonely dungeons which no friend in the flesh can approach, at the stake when no visible smile may greet them, when God's name is used to condemn them — "Be faithful unto death, He will give you the crown of life." And why may not these same be the teachers and evangelists of the lands for which they wept and bled below? 4. There is one thought more in connection with this subject which I dare not suppress. In the calendar of a great part of Christendom All Saints' Day is followed by All Souls' Day. We may remember that the angels of God rejoice over one sinner that repents, because God rejoices. We may be sure that He, without whom a sparrow does not fall to the ground, does not lose sight of a soul which He has made. We may be sure, therefore, that all saints care for all souls. Their affections, their powers of sympathy and blessing, are not limited as ours are by circumstances of time and space. They are limited only by that love of God, the height and depth and length and breadth of which they are as incapable of measuring as we are, but which flows forth to them, and in them, and through them everlastingly. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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; |
    |