Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1316
“These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” Revelation 7:14.
OUR curiosity inquires into the condition of those who have newly entered Heaven. Like fresh stars they have lit up the celestial firmament with an added splendor. New voices are heard in the choir of the redeemed. In what condition are they at the moment of their admission to the heavenly seats? Their bodies are left behind, we know, to decay back to Mother Earth, but how fare their unclothed immortal spirits? What now occupies those pure and perfect minds? We are not left in the dark upon this matter—our Lord Jesus Christ has brought immortality and life to light—and in the words of our text and the preceding and following verses we are informed as to these new comers, these recruits for the Church triumphant!
Were our text properly translated it would run thus—“these are they that come out of great tribulation,” or who “are coming”—in the present tense. If the word does not distinctly refer to those who have “just come,” it certainly includes such. Those who “come” are those who have come and those who shall come, but it must also include those who are, at this moment, arriving. These are they those whom I venture to call Heaven’s new-born princes, her fresh blooming flowers whose beauty, for the first time, is seen in Paradise. Lo, I see the newly departed passing through the river of Death, ascending the other shore and entering in through the gates into the City.
What are these new comers doing? We find that they are not kept waiting outside, nor put through a quarantine, nor cast into purgatorial fires—but as they arrive from great tribulation they are at once admitted to holy fellowship. Therefore are they before the Throne of God—dwelling in the courts of the Great King—to go no more out forever. Earthly courtiers only stand, at times, in their monarch’s presence, but these abide forevermore before the Throne of God and of the Lamb, favored to behold the face of God without a veil between and to see the King in His beauty in the land that is very far off.
How quickly has earth faded from their minds and Heaven’s Glory flashed upon them! The sick bed and the weeping friends are gone—the Throne of their God and Savior fills the whole field of their delighted vision! They are arrayed for holy service, and arrayed at once, for they wear white robes fitted for their priestly service. It is true they have no material bodies, but in some mystic sense which is applicable to the spirit world these holy ones wear a vesture which qualifies them for celestial worship and all the holy service of the heavenly state. They are not only admitted to see God and prepared to engage in His most glorious worship, but they are, at once, permitted actually to commence their holy lifework by serving God day and night in His temple.
We find them already engaged in actual adoration, for they cried with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God which sits upon the Throne and unto the Lamb.” These pure spirits yet have voices which our God, who is a Spirit, hears and approves. Their song is full of purest Gospel Truth and their earnestness is shown by the loudness of their voices. They need no angels to instruct them in the manners and customs of the upper world, for even while they sojourned on earth their conversation was in Heaven and they are at home at once! They are not waiting till they have learned the song—but they know it already—for Grace is the rehearsal of Glory!
They do not need to be initiated into the sacred mysteries, for they have had access within the veil while here below. They will begin their heavenly life at once, take up the tune just where they find it and join in the hymn just as soon as they arrive! They begin at once to praise Him that sits upon the Throne and to adore the Lamb! How sweet it is to think of those who have lately left us, that, though they broke off this mortal life, as it were, before it was complete and left it a fragment, yet they do not begin life up yonder prematurely or abruptly, but exactly at the right time! The new singer
takes his place in the choir just when his part is coming on and takes up the keynote as if he had been there a century!
He begins his song with his white robe on and his palm branch in his hand, as one who is well prepared to take his part in the endless adoration.
Sudden Glory does not startle the inhabitants of Heaven as sudden death startles the dwellers upon earth. The immigrants to Heaven are expected and the gates stand always open to welcome them. There are no untimely births into the Church of the First-Born—each one comes in his season. As to the state and condition of the newly glorified, they are described to us still, further, in the verses which follow the text. It seems to me that those pure spirits who are without their bodies as yet are pictured as being like the children of Israel when the great camp was pitched in the wilderness. In the desert the Lord God would have dwelt among them, had it not been for their sins. In Heaven He does dwell in the most supreme sense. “He that sits on the Throne shall dwell among them.”