After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. (Revelation 7:9, NIV)
Have your eyes turned to Australia?
I live in a mild part of the country where we could probably play golf every day of the year if we didn’t stay home when the temps drop below 50 degrees or the clouds release more than a quarter inch of rain. There, I’ve said it. We’re wimps here.
Many of you live in no such place. The courses actually close where you are, for months at a time. You’re desperate for anything golf, so when your surfing through the TV channels lands you on a sunny day Down Under, you’re game. Can the Aussies defend home turf against Jordan Spieth? It’s a compelling enough question to make you watch.
In seasons like this, we might be tempted to give credit to television for bringing the world so close, for in mere moments we are presented scenes from around the world. It’s still pretty amazing when you think about it.
But not quite two thousand years ago on an exile’s island in the Aegean Sea, the world came together in technicolor of another kind. The apostle John saw the people of the world gathered before the throne of God in the most spectacular vision ever recorded. We’ve come to call it the book of Revelation.
Revelation features many indecipherable scenes (at least unarguably indecipherable), but it also gives us pictures of the throne of God, the glorified Lamb (Christ), and the environs of heaven. These are unforgettable.
Among the celestial scenes set for us is one before the throne of God in chapter 7. There John sees a multitude of people. By itself, this is beautiful, for we recognize that while the road to life may be “narrow and few find it” (Matthew 7:14), this is a relative few, not a literal few. This multitudinous throng was beyond counting.
Next we read that those gathered come from throughout the earth—every tongue and tribe and nation. It means that there is no shortcoming in heaven; the work of the disciples, one generation unto the next all the way to us (and perhaps beyond) will be completed. What is that work? This: “And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
One last thought. Though the work is shown as done in the prophecy of Revelation, we are not there yet. The fields of salvation harvest still call for workers. Pray that the Lord would send them. Support those who have gone, with prayer and encouragement and funding. Be willing to go if he sends you. Together we are charged to make disciples, so let’s be about this business until the Great Commission culminates with the great crowd in heaven.
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Jeff Hopper
November 28, 2017
Copyright 2017 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.