Friday, November 22, 2013
WHO ARE THESE ARRAYED IN WHITE ROBES?
See your Christ-believing Grandmother on oxygen and confined to a wheelchair. Once youthful, strong and pretty, time has taken its toll. Now she's faded, feeble, and not long for this world. But now imagine Grandma in a different way. See her standing on two strong legs, able to outrun her grandchildren with hardly any effort. See her triumphant, glorified and powerful in body and spirit.
See a persecuted child of God from any age in history. One torn apart in the arena by ferocious lions, another burned at the stake, another beheaded, all looking so beaten, so defeated. But imagine this martyred band standing together waving victory palms -- noble, strong, triumphant forevermore!
See a broken man, looking back at a life of one sinful wrong turn after another. Yet this same man is confident that his Savior has put the entire load of his sin on Himself. The world looks at such a man and sees nothing but a wreck and a total failure. But, again, as we look beyond the now, we see a triumphant saint, one who has overcome by the blood of the Lamb, one basking for endless ages in an inheritance that can never be spoiled or perish.
See yourself with all your sins and troubles and weaknesses. See yourself, but then look again ... Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, "Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?"
And I said to him, "Sir, you know."
So he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Revelation 7:13-17).
